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6, 3.< 
LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 


PRINCETON, N. J. 


PURCHASED BY THE 
a 
MRS. ROBERT LENOX KENNEDY CHURCH HISTORY FUND. 


Divisioi.....h.24.... 


Section...a.m.¥. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


‘https://archive.org/details/ourchurchpeopleO0evan 





Joseph Smith, the Prophet 






tO PAE Pes 
ae '$p 
JUN 8 1925] 


Kogien sewed 


Our Church and People 


Written for the 
Deseret Sunday School Union 
By 


John Henry Evans 


Author of 


“One Hundred Years of Mormonism’’ 


ats 


ae 


Published by 
THE DESERET BOOK COMPANY 


2 Salt Lake City, Utah 
1924 


Copyright, 1924 
By David O. McKay 
For the Deseret Sunday School Union 


Printed in the United States of America 
By Tue Deseret News Press 


TO THE TEACHER 


This book, as stated on the title page, was written 
for the Deseret Sunday School Union of the Church 
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its general pur- 
poses is ‘suggested in the title, “Our Church ° and 
People.” That purpose is to give the young persons 
for whom it is intended such information concerning 
the organization to which they may belong and the 
men and women who aided in establishing it as will 
create in them a just pride in both the Church and its 
people. In accordance with this general aim a careful. 
selection of the material used has been made, and this 
has been presented in such a form, it is believed, as will 
be both interesting and understandable. 

Thirty-six chapters are provided. The first chap- 
ter aims to create a forward look in the reader. It 
gives reasons for the study of the material that fol- 
lows. The last chapter suggests a means by which 
this material may be tested—workability and personal 
revelation. The matter in between these sections 1s 
divided into three parts—the preliminary chapters, the 
period of beginnings, and the period of expansion and 
growth. The main point in the first chapters is that 
true priesthood, or divine authority, was lost during 
the Middle Ages, which accounts for the unauthorized 
changes that took place in the church. In the second 
part emphasis is thrown on the ideas revealed to the 
Prophet, together with the incidents leading to the 
revelation of these ideas. And in the third part stress 
is placed on the development of the truths treated 
in the second part. It is believed that more attention 
has been given to this last period than is usual in 
our books, emphasis being given to character and the 
elemental struggle involved in this development. The 
figurative sentences introducing each part will, it is 


4 lO. THE TEACHER 


hoped, point the way to the heart of the discussions 
that follow. : 

All through the work attention is directed to 
fundamentals rather than incidentals, and such funda- 
mentals too as will be helpful to present-day living. 
This fact will explain the absence of topics that have 
occupied in other books on the general subject a very 
considerable amount of space—the “persecutions” in 
Missouri and Illinois and in early Utah, and the doc- 
trine of plural marriage with the difficulties involved. 
These are now of only historical importance even to 
adults. 

In the table of contents the topics of the chap- 
ters have been arranged so as to stand out, each by 
itself. It is believed that this will prove helpful to 
both teachers and pupils in locating and following 
the central thread, not only of the chapters taken 
separately, but of the book as a whole. 

Following each chapter are two or more questions. 
These do not aim to test the knowledge of the pupils 
concerning the text, but rather to set their minds to 
work on matters involving both the text and their 
own individual experiences. These questions may be 
discussed in the class without previous preparation 
other than the reading of the lesson, or they may be 
assigned to individual members of the class to be 
discussed first by those to whom they have been as- 
signed and afterwards by the class generally. 

Attention may here be called also to an attempt 
made at the beginning of most of the chapters to 
hitch up the lesson material to the experiences of the 
pupils, as the best preparation for the reading of the . 
chapter. Whether or not this has been effectively 
done in this book, it is at any rate the secret of good 
teaching everywhere. This is what is known in edu- 
cational books as the “point of contact.” It is what 
makes the material in a lesson take hold. Jesus 
never neglected this pedagogical principle in his 
teaching. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTORY : 


Chapter I. A Wonderful Story of Our Own Day 


1. Why one should study about the 


CBT iteh tae ae cs vce et ee ek je 
PMO PDLCOaLe MOL a -tltssiOMe poe 14 
3. To know what it has done for you...... ie 
pemlovleatietne purpose ofeliie =... AG, 


PART FIRST: 


Sea otcio lism neWorks omtneshoads 4. ces 


1 Onatiakines decisions: Sa wige © eee 20 
2. On the great number of churches.......... 21 
3. On why we have so many churches....22 


Chapter III. The Way out of the Woods............ 


Peiaosioorandiiindinesthings.| et 26 
Paewy hat wasilostain, the apostasy.) 2... 26 
BeeViicanifio olepriestnOOd.eceee oo cee 2h 
4. How the priesthood was lost................ 2° 
De PuEpOSer cue them estOoration gal aiih tac. 30 


Chapter IV. A New Message to the World ........ 


1. To warn the world of impending 


htagegagtcraqeces 0 ee ate reas EN y tT os 32 
2. To prepare the world for the Second 
POTTY ET LO taste pee ot eke 1, Susie ue ee Gre 34 


PART SECOND: 


PhApter yee poyedt thesCross. ROadsiiat Ls 


ME SenSatlonnol nA Pecillo elOSt so. ee ee 38 
2. Birth and boyhood of Joseph Smith.... 39 
DeMOSeDMiSPaNGesti ym akonsst omit) LLG 40 
AY, GES MM Zee SllrehAG Fras Seva uly gare eend tay (ae MS 41 
Deetoseph-andttherevivalyes Lae ae 42 
Chapter VI. Light that Never Was on Land or 
ST PI eS U Rarer? howls eee aeeale eae es beam 
(Peay Sig ladie taper i tag OR ly os 5 44 
Zia Neanassac Cait ames wee sie. .. 45 


Reel thes NaI SICT eee wien etme boca. re tae 46 


13 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


A, Aitertthe: Visiotr c= sche ee 47 
5. Joseph’s reflections on the Vision... 48 
Chapter VII. The Personages of the Vision...... 
1. Various ideas about God i Oe 52 

2. Importance of correct ideas about 
GOS Acts este ea a 53 


3. Ways in which we may know of God.. 54 
a. Through Nature. 
b. Through the word of God. 
c. Through a study of Christ... 55 
(1) Jesus had a body. 
(2) He had all power. 
(3) He had courage. 
(4) He had universal love. 


Chapter VTS God's Wireless) ea ee 


1. The vision shows necessity of prayer.. 59 
2. Ways in which prayer may be 
ATS WOT "cee ve eekeeee tee eae hea PhDs. 61 
Do) SU OUMNSeOL I prayel ie ee Ne Se UA 62 
a. Public prayer. 
b. Family Prayer. 
ce. oecret prayer: 


#/ Prayer a safeguard "in lieu eee 62 
5. How God may answer prayer ........-. Za f 
Chapter IX. The Book with Golden Leaves... 
libre Sacred shoo es ee oe 67 
2A second svision 42 eo 67 
3. Moronisiméssage-e se. nee Pa ee 
4. Joseph views the Plates. 7.22.3... ae 
5. he nextournsyears (i.e 71 
6. Joseph. obtains the Plates scene 72 
Chapter X. Through Urim and Thummim ........ 
1. Difficulties in keeping the book... 73 
2. Removal to Pennsylvania ‘.2.4........ 74 
Gio. tasislatiOn aber Ute meee 74 
4. Progress of the work of translation... 76 
5. How the book was translated _............. 76 


6. Publication of the book Mei 7h 


67 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


hapten. |e liheskedvMan‘s Bible ti. )2 2 sae: 


1, Pame ot the ‘Book of Mormon...16.-... 78 
2. Contents of the Book of Mormon.......... 78 
ave Lheslaredites: 
b. The Lehites. 
(1) ‘The Nephites. 
(2) The Lamanites. 


3. Purpose of the Book of Mormon.......... 82 
aisle pales mt hicemetOphetarotm: iis 
WOT Keres! Attar cur Faria bre 82 
b. Informs the Indians of an- 
GEStOlS Bayes Fie Ms She 83 
Ged eaches vospel inj plainnessi223 83 


4. Witness to the authenticity of book.. 84 
a. Three witnesses. 
b. Eight witnesses. 


iaatce. | lea) itomtienVWilderness: 05. at), 


PpelDivttlesatitherity necessatys was are = 87 
@mevatonicy priesthood restored 222)... 87 
Oraalioher priesthood. restored) 214... 88 
4. “Mormon” Church independent ’of 
Gtherspet te eee ee OE NaN oe 88 
ee aticeOrstie: Onc ims eee. 89 
me nuuchgorcanizedss) ae ees Bee 90 
deepishvextitstamitacle meee ee Sar 91 
Chapter XIII. Some Foundation Stones ............ 
lee emocracyotethe Ghurchiewss ot 04 
ZOIstriDUniOn Opa pricstuOOd! aware. 95 
OUTS TED UII CL) CS amie! mea 1k Aneta oe 96 
aaelaithe 


b. Repentance. 
c. Baptism. 
d. Confirmation. 


ie liag (ete lV VOL er suinethegoilencen sees ae 


1. A girl’s question about tongues _..... 102 
eV ilateantiiraclesismeeen ye. ooeels to soar 104 
Dee vidraclesssiansyatglait gore eg sols se 106 


4, Miracles common in our age _...........107 


87 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


Chapter X.V~ iHeralds, ottSalvatron. .. ees 
1. What missionaries say of missions._._.... 109 
2. First, mission in the Chirehs te 2s 109 
3. Interest-in Missottri 35.28 ee ee 110 
4° Changes ‘in the Ghurchs ioe eee 112 
> Wission (o"Canaa a weer eee LES 
6. First. mission tosEnsland Ai een, 113 

Chapter X VI. Not of the World 22.20 ee 
]. Value ‘er opposition: 2 2) fee 115 
2. Barly -opposition 2:1: 5 4280, eee iis 
3. Early deféndersi2 3 ae to wees 117 
4. Growth of Church in Missouri ............ 118 
5. Expulsion of Saints from Missouri....118 
6. Elfortsto reinstate Saints. eee 119 
7. Expulsion trom ~Niissouri ee eee 121 

Chapter XVII. Rising’ from the Ashés,_.... 
1. Picture of a house ESTE TiT © ae on ee eee 122 
2. Condition of the Saints in Illinois....125 
O. LaSenof The SInilis 2 nee eee 126 
A: Makino the New Home oa. ter an eee 127 

Chapter X VIIT. Over the Great Waters, 3a 
1. Your nationality ..... ty aceite 130 
2. Mission tos-Palestine se 2g eee 130 
a. pecond mission to Enclanies see 132 

ioe Growth of ttissiotys ones eee re 

Chapter XIX. Two Worlds to ne itis E it 
l. The living: anditheweads i. 22 ee 136 
2; Our spirit. gd <4<, ea eee 137 
3.(Lhe spirit worlds..2. =e eee 139 
4, Condition: there...22.22 2 ee ee 139 
3, -Lhe resurrection’: 224.2... 52s ee AED 
6. ‘The.three kinodoms-= cornea 141 

Chapter XX. For Time and Eternity2_.20.....2.2e 
1, “Phe lonelinéss*of'Grusoesiiine 2.7 s 142 
2. Companionship necessary . iene 2): 
3. Home the center of our life here... 143 


4. Conditions ofa good homei:iz_:.usiex 144 


a 


TaApsbE we Or CONTENTS 9 


Beep SGI plomeMatt la Ces ia eetss ee es ce 145 
Crp shinie sa Vou tid yd OnNeheg taut tte 145 

saa e me ety ea linoe a) estan y auu, oe 69.4 148 
ikneestipreme téstcomiaitineeas (2). 148 
zZ:-Gause ofthe Prophet s murder. ...02. 148 
OeayGoIMOUitiOns OL Ceathp aut eles 150 
PRePIBLVONGEA SCO Vem Une ite ee Aes ae ee oe Jee 
pm oueuetatiic’ Lr aOed yaa ee kee 152 

Chapter XXII. Side-lights on the Prophet.......... 1s 
1. Personal appearance of the _ Pro- 

1) ETE ENG Say Seto eager eee Ye ea 153 
Pemba tiie (tlt ote suger memes te fea 154 
ee Pia Pec ality cee ate ene ee 2 aye 

Chaptecux «lL iowiithy tleetine Days... = ae 158 
1. Two problems before the Saints....... 158 
PRA We OLiStCCeSsIO Nigh eres. a 160 
Bem rOrcehroulleste.aten rset a nao. toe 161 
Prasat UaAy SOU NAUVOO), act etna tee E162 

PARTALHIRD: 

Ci banten iia Covered mWasons (ince. ee 166 
[db secant dau y ryote: OP. senna SAE ae Sete aaa 166 
Zagilievoreat: West then wee tn toa nc): ee LO/, 
om oamizationy a: Ne Catipeviss tee a 168 
AMATO SL VID) Stee itis Pe te eerie tee wale 169 
PSL ODP ITOy! Did Ces conn te ba eS Fay co L/L 

Giapter xX. %V...lm the -Wialdernéss...0. of2 2s! ac 
(Pane On. thes WidssOUri «2... cal i 
2. Towns in the wilderness _....... AS 
3 Wditemin the wilderness... beste bes rs 175 
ea uney Lotion meaty alicia ment ses 177 

Ghaptctases vio Lheslcone one Prail 2 ee 180 
Me ioncers com patiy see fe. otd 5 ilk eas 183 
ZepmALeT DIQUCCT SWate a, Mik ertc ae (2 beet oa 184 
eat Cart ecOm Dati yrctcm unset oe tn a 187 
4, Pleasant and unpleasant features _...... 188 

Chapter, XXV Il 7 The -Battleswith: the 'Soil)..: 192 


1. The sea-gull monument’s meaning....192 
ee xppeatdice omUtahwihen’ 01 6: 195 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


3. fo rstiwintet, setae wee es 2 eee 196 
A OTHE Crickets a ee eee 199 
>». Unexpected'supplies 223s Behe lt 200 
Chapter XX VIII. How Firm a Foundation........ 201 
lo Lavine théstemplesstonce-.6. es eee 
2. Gretting ail tLitiG Cae eee eee 205 
3. How ie landiwas:divideds ase 205 
4) LayingsOutioalt™ Laker Cine eee 
ye LLOMie, midtish GS). nti sae eae 207 


6. Value of the work of the pioneers......209 
Chapter XXIX. Team-work in Community 


Building. 3.6.0 e ee ee ee Zit 
1. Veam- work inatn eticss ges ee Zit 
2. LEXDlOTAUONSS = em a ee ee ee 212 
3. How colonization was done ................... 215 
4 Political eovernments se Pc: ae Ly, 
Chapter XOUX.-An Ensien to, the Nations 22x. 220 
Lee hesseen “andethesun-cene. eee 220 
2.1 Be pioneers weremrelicigus 22. ae Zak 
Dac lL heyowere Ora yertile. | he, eee 22 
4. hey helped one another (22 eee 
S. hey? were” Church-océrere on ees Boo 
6. They established orderly com- 
MUNItiES <8 eke eee ee 224 
Chapter iA 20) hes lion. Git hegicot Gane ee 225 
1. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young ...225 
2. Birth and boyhood of Brigham........... 228 
3.) PersOnallappedt ance: ..ae ie ee ieee 
A MO Gal itieS eerie been ip ag Aa ee 230 
2. A trip (South 2 oe. eee eee Zao 
Chapter XXX Ties that Bind gee eee oe Pie, 
lL. Guriosity abot the templeqisee ae Za9 
Zao temp lesbuildinesneonlenees a) 239 
3. What temples areata = ee ee B39 
4. Church teachings concerning man _..240 
). palvationdorthe déadea dees 241 


Chapter XXXIII. Branches that Run over the 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 


WECM ALTS SE lt oo 3 er ROR AVIORE SRRe ND a Ana eee 
iPeLLOWALILINS SeOTOW ie eer soe Oh 249 
Comlilien @ itr CHS0 TO Wis g aeeteee getter 250 
3. ihe early Church had difficulties_..... 250 
SENT Lysetll 1S O10 LL St aimee a oe ta Re Nae ers 252 
De OLOTAUIIUSSI OILS mies tee ae eee 205 
OmlLiometmissioiatryework’s (20 ss. 254 
Pe Doin oeteGrLOryer eae are 255 

Chapter XX XIV. How the Church Is Governed 256 
Pe Cedeo te Gro aniza tiOliw eats Cie eee oct 256 
2. The Church a great organization........ 256 
SALMO SANIZ AON te ee eae ede ae ae) 
Ame uherstake organization. ee 203 
OMe ola gett ISI ON Su see ce cafe Nae eae 264 
Oe nceGiiinehuasenew lOler. ste? sas 11 mee 2O/ 
yaelloverandsservice the ideal), <4 2... 268 


Chapter XXXV. Climbing the eae Heights 270 


1. Incident of the farmer and the oil 


cia ERE 2 nae oe ene 8 ae ce od Ae aS 270 
Pelayo, Kindstuienich es sea 2/3 
SMO Mpominiticonalimapout yOu. ao. 274 


a. In the auxiliary organizations 
b. In the Church generally 


4. Making the most of what you have....282 
CONCLUSION: 

Chapter XXXVI. How You ya snes the 
SISCIiL Ligeerenaareter cy ke fos type eee. 1h 109): 

PeOnabeamiosastestiinonyu fe 283 

Dee Nate artesti OTL aia ree eee ae e2s3 

SelwOnway.s CleKNOW (N08. vs eee eee: 284 

Gee VAKHOWAN Oe bUey pa ttc re cceg es 284 


Dap veensSpltation mee. Vac Sener 286 


ZOD 


Stay yourselves and wonder. Cry ye out, and cry, 
“They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, 
but not with strong drink.” For the Lord hath poured 
out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed 
your eyes; the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath 
he covered. 

And the vision of all is become unto you as the words 
of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that 
is learned, saying, “Read this, I pray thee;’ and he 
saith, “I cannot, for it is sealed.” And the book is 
delivered to him, that is not learned, saying, “Read 
this, | pray thee;” and he saith, “I am not learned.” 
Wherefore the Lord said, “Forasmuch as this people 
draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips 
do honor me, but have removed their hearts far from 
me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept: 
of men, therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a mar- 
velous work among this people, even a marvelous 
work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men 
shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent 
men shall be hid.” 


The Lord to the Prophet Isaiah. 


Our Church and People 


habee es Mele 


A WONDERFUL STORY OF 
OUR OWN DAY 


Have you ever stopped to ask yourself the question, 
“Why should I know something about my Church?” If 
Wie Rouliee 2G have not, now is a good time to do so, 
you study as you are on the threshold of that study. 
your Church? Qf course, there are many reasons that 
could be mentioned, but three will be singled out in this 
chapter. 

One reason lies in the fact that it may be your good 
fortune some day to preach “Mormonism” in a foreign 
SS: a land or in one of the States of our own 
wish to go country, and certainly you will wish to do 
ona mission. that in a way that will reflect credit on 
your Church as well as on yourself. 

You will not want to put yourself in the position of 
the young missionary whom we heard of the other day. 
The boy A good enough boy in his personal habits, 
who did he had neglected at home to pay much 
not know. attention to religion. But he went on a 
mission. Once, while distributing tracts he came upon 
a man who seemed to know a good deal about the “Mor- 
mons,” but who wished to have it appear that he was 
seeking information. So he asked the young man many 
questions. How did Joseph Smith get his authority to 


14. OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


set up a Church, when he had never been a member of 
any? In what way did the “Mormon” Church get money 
to support itself with? He had noticed, he said, that the 
Saints used water for the sacrament instead of wine. 
What authority did they have for this? These and a 
score of other such questions he fairiy flung at the 
nissionary’s head. 


The poor boy was so confused and embarrassed that 
he did not know what to do. He floundered about in 
his attempt to answer, like a drowning man, who grasps 
at straws and shadows in a supreme effort to save him- 
self from death. It was all to no purpose. Presently 
the man said to him rather savagely: “A fine missionary 
you are! There you stand, unable to answer the simplest 
questions about a religion you say you have come seven 
thousand miles to teach. Better go home and learn it 
yourself first.” 


He did not go home to study his religion, but you may 
be sure he studied it. He might, however, have saved 
himself this humiliating experience if only he had tried 
to prepare himself before leaving home. 


Rather would you wish to be in the position of the 
young man who had just the opposite experience. It 
happened that this second missionary was 
the companion of the one we have just 
spoken of. Also he was a few years younger 
—a mere stripling, in fact. But he had prepared him- 
self for a mission. Indeed, he had looked forward to 
one ever since he could remember anything. Before he 
received his call, besides attending his meetings with 
considerable regularity, he had read the Old Testament 
through and the New Testament twice from Matthew 


The boy 
who knew. 


WONDEREUL STORY OF OURL,OWN DAY 15 


to Revelation, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and 
Covenants, many sermons of the Church leaders, and 
the history of the Church—a hard task, you may easily 
guess. As a result, you could hardly ask him where 
anything was in any of these books but he could tell 
you. He was able to converse with intelligence on most 
of the principles of “Mormonism.” When he went on 
his mission therefore he had no need to spend time in 
first learning what to preach. 


Another reason why you should study the teachings of 
your Church is that you may the better be able to appre- 
Th hse done ciate what it has done for you. You may 
great things not know it, but you would not be where 
for you. you are to-day and what you are had it not 
been for “Mormonism.” 

Listen ! 


Many years ago, long before even your father or 
mother was born, there was a man who lived in England. 
He was poor and had a large family. Every 

nae day, before it was dawn, he took a coarse 
; lunch and went into a shaft, which dropped 
down hundreds of feet underground. Here, with a heavy 
pick, and lighted only by the flicker of a dim miner's 
candle stuck in the front of his cap, he dug coal all day 
and every day, including Sunday. At night, after it was 
dark, he came up out of the mine and walked home, where 
he took a bath in a tub of tepid water to rinse off the 
coal-dust, and sat down to another inexpensive meal, but 
the best he could afford. Then he went to bed, tired to 
the bone, to sleep like a log. Once he had known how 
to. read, but that was when he was a boy. Now, how- 
ever, it was as if he had never learned the alphabet, for 


16 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


work, hard work, had crowded out of his life all leisure, 
and therefore all desire to read. 

Year after year of darkened days, this had gone on, 
till now he was getting old. As his sons grew big 
enough to wield the pick, they, too, descended into the 
earth to dig coal, following in the footsteps of the father. 
When they married and had sons of their own, these 
again would do as their fathers and their grandfather 
had done—learn to read and then to forget it, load trams 
with hard, black coal, eat the coarsest fare, wash the 
coal-dust off their bodies, and go to sleep on a springless 
bed! This was all their hope and promise. 


But there came a change. 

One day a “Mormon” missionary from Utah came to 
this humble home. He told how the Lord had revealed 
Himself to a new Prophet in America, how the Book 
of Mormon had been made known to Joseph Smith, how 
the Church of Christ had been reestablished on the earth, 
with its ancient blessings, how the priesthood had been 
Siven again to men, and, finally, how the Lord had 
taken His people to “the tops of the mountain” and 
“exalted them above the hills.’ And the man believed 
and presently was baptized with all his family. Then the 
spirit of gathering took hold of him. The Church lent 
him some money to come to “Zion,” as Utah was known 
in those days. 

Here the family prospered as they never could have 
done in their native land. As time went on, they became 
well-to-do. The father and mother both learned to read, 
for they had time to do so. The children received what 
is equal to a high school education, and three of the boys 
were graduated from college. And the sunshine and 


WONDERFUL STORY OF OUR OWN DAY 17 


the mountains and pleasant surroundings everywhere 
made all their hearts glad. He is a very, very old man 
now, and the sons are about the same age he was when 
the gospel found him and picked him up, but his voice is 
not too feeble to be lifted in praise for what “Mormonism” 
has done for him and those who are to come after him. 

What is true of this man and his family is true of 
thousands of other families in all the places where the 
Latter-day Saints have settled. Where would you have 
been now, if your parents or grandparents had not joined 
the Church? What would have been your lot then? You 
may easily find out by asking your fathers and mothers 
where their parents lived before they joined the Church. 
Your parents can help you to imagine the rest. 

But the greatest reason why you should study all that 
It teaches concerns your Church is that you may know 
the value and the purposes of life and how to make your 


urpose of , : 
life here. life count-for the most in the long run. 


When Christianity was introduced into England in 
the days of Eadwine, by a missionary from Rome, the 
question as to whether the people of England should 
join the new faith was put up to the wise men of the 
land. One of them said, “So seems the life of man, O 
King, as a sparrow’s flight through the hall when a man 
is sitting at meat in winter-tide with the warm fire lighted 
on the hearth but the chill rainstorm without. The 
sparrow flies in at one door and tarries for a moment 
in the light and heat of the hearth-fire, and then flying 
forth from the other vanishes into the wintry darkness 
whence it came. So tarries for a moment the life of 
man in our sight, but what is before it, what after it, 


i8 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


we know not. If this new teaching tell us aught certainly 
of these, let us follow it.” 

And this is true. Our life is a mystery to us. We 
see it only for a moment, as it were. But it comes from 
somewhere, and it goes somewhere. But where? ‘That 
is the question that has come down to us through the 
long past. Who can answer it? The surgeon who 
dissects the human body can not, for life hides itself 
from his keenest blade. And he who studies the work- 
ings of the mind is also at a loss to find its source and 
hiding place. Nor is the teacher with his powerful 
microscope any more likely to locate the secret as to our 
past and future. There is only one way by which it is 
possible to learn about the things of the spirit, and that 
is from God, who is the Father of spirits. And this 
information comes mainly through the Church. So if 
we would know who we are, where we came from, and 
where we are going, we must study the gospel. And 
so, too, if we would understand anything about God and 
what He wishes us to do while we are here in the flesh. 


QUESTIONS 


1. After talking with your parents about where they and 
their parents lived before they joined the Church, make a list of 
the things and opportunities you now enjoy which you would 
not have but for the Church? 

2. What can you do now in return for this benefit (a) to 
yourself, (b) to your relatives, (c) to the Church? 


In the olden times when the men of to-day were the 
boys of yesterday, when one lad played marbles with 
another lad and found, as it came his turn to shoot, that 
there were obstacles between his “taw” and the marble 
he had intended to hit; he cried, “Clearance!” And if 
that other boy had not already shouted, “Vent clearance!” 
he proceeded to brush away the obstacles so as to leave 
a clear path from his hand to the marble in the ring. 


This is something like what has to be done in this 
book before we can come to the history and teachings 
of the Church in the present age. Some obstacles have 
to be cleared away. Why should there be another Church, 
when we already had so many? If “Mormonism” is a 
Restoration, what is it a restoration of? And what is 
wrong with the numerous divisions and subdivisions of 
what has come to be called “Christianity ?” 


CHAPTER II 
THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 


No doubt you have on more than one occasion in your 
life stood at a point where two roads met, wondering 
Some com- Which of them you ought to take. It may 
mon decis- have been dark with not even the light of 
Sie the inconstant moon or the stars to help 
to make. you; or there may have been dangers to 
terrify you—wild beasts or an approaching storm. The 
difficulty would be increased if there were several roads 
from which to choose instead of two. 


And you may also, most likely, have been in a situation 
where you had to decide between two or more lines of 
conduct, as, for instance, whether you should finish your 
high school course or engage in some business, and, in 
that case, what occupation you ought to follow in life. 
This, too, is a very common experience. It is often a 
trivial matter that we have thus to decide for ourselves, 
as whether we should go fishing to-day or stay at home. 
But sometimes it is a matter of very grave importance, 
choosing an occupation, for instance, or getting married. 

One of the most important concerns in life that many 
have to decide one time or another is, “Which church 
shall I belong to?” It is a question that most people 
find very puzzling. And no wonder, for there are so 
many different churches in the world. 


If. you look at the directory of Salt Lake City, you 
will find there the names of sixteen different churches. 


THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 21 


What a city With one or two exceptions, they go by the 
directory name of Christian. Yet they differ from 
reveals about : : 

the churches, One another in many particulars. 

There you will see the name of the Roman Catholic 
Church, for instance, which teaches that its authority has 
come down to the present time from the Apostle Peter 
through nineteen hundred years of popes and cardinals. 
There also you may find the names of the Episcopal and 
Presbyterian churches, the one with its bishops and the 
other with its elders as the main mark of difference. 
There too appears the name of the Methodist church, 
with its different “method,’ or way, of doing things 
from the church of England, out of which it came. And 
there finally you may pick out the name of the Baptist 
church, so called because its members believe in and prac- 
tice baptism by dipping the whole body in water instead 
of pouring or sprinkling it on the head, as in most other 
churches. 

But what is true in this respect of Salt Lake City is 
just as true of almost every other large town in the 
United States, or, for that matter, in the world, and 
the bigger the city the greater the number of churches 
to be found there usually. The directory of San 
Francisco, or Chicago, or New York, or of Paris or 
London, would reveal a list that would run up into the 
hundreds, may be. To be sure, some of these might 
prove to be what we have come to call pagan—that is, 
religious bodies or persons that do not accept Christ— 
but most. of them, you would discover, claim to believe 
in the teachings of the New Testament. Indeed, there 
are, all told, several hundred different religious organ- 
izations in the world. 


22 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


This condition, you may well imagine, proves extremely 
puzzling to those who are inclined to think at all seri- 


The question OUsly about religion. It is like standing at 


of which the forks of a road in a strange country and 
ere being told that any of them will take you to 
puzzling. your destination, when you know, as a mat- 


ter of fact, that they will do nothing of the sort, if they 
are at all like the roads you have been accustomed to. 
No wonder a pagan of higher intelligence than the aver- 
age of his race, on being urged to become a Christian by 
missionaries of several different churches and being in 
doubt as to which of them he should join, advised all 
the men to go home first and settle on some one denomi- 
nation, and when they had done that to come back to him 
and he would see about it. 

A great many persons in Christian lands also are per- 
plexed when they wish to become members of a church. 
If they believe that all churches are equally good, they 
embrace the one that is handiest. But if they look upon 
the churches as all equally bad, they may turn from both 
churches and religion and become atheist or I-don’t- 
knows. Of course, this is not a very sensible thing to do, 
for religion is too important a matter to be either ac- 
cepted or thrown aside in this careless fashion. Still, 
what is one to do when one is confronted by so grave a 
question ? 

How is it, anyway, that we have so many different 
brands of Christianity? 

Jesus established but one church. That is as clear as 
anything from the New Testament, where we have an 
rr acane account of His earthly life. The Apostle 
have so many Paul denounced in strong terms the idea of 
churches. splitting up the church and naming the parts 


THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 23 


now for this man and now for that one. Yet, as time 
went on, differences arose among the leaders of Christian- 
ity, with the result that those who were in the minority 
and could not have their way, ended by forming churches 
of their own. 

One of the first of these divisions took place in the 
ninth century after Christ. On account of some dis- 

agreements with the head of the Church 
The first over whether officers should marry, and 
division. : : : 

; other points, a man named Photius set him- 
self up as the head of the church in Eastern Europe. This 
act, you see, gave the world two Christian churches—the 
Eastern, which centered in Constantinople under a Patri- 
arch, and the Western, which had its headquarters in 
Rome under a pope. 

Later, in the sixteenth century, a kind of revolutionary — 
spirit in Europe turned out a group of sects, or branches, 

of the Christian church in the West. These 

Bones and their offshoots are termed Protestant 

; churches, because they protested at one 

time or another against something done by the Church 
of Rome. 

This religious revolution, commonly known as the Re- 
formation, was begun by a German monk, named Martin 
Luther. One day a friar, whose name was Tetzel and 
who had a keener eye for business than for religion, came 
into the home town of Luther, peddling indulgences. 
That is to say in order to raise money to build St. 
Peter’s cathedral in Rome, he went about Europe telling 
the people that if they contributed to this cause, their 
sins would be forgiven and their dead friends and rela- 
tives, who might be in purgatory, would straightway be 
released from their sufferings and go up to heaven, 


24 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


This greatly shocked Luther. So he protested against 
this selling of spiritual values on the street. On the 
rahe _ door of the church where he was wont to 
and the preach he nailed ninety-five objections— 
Reformers. “theses” they are called. At once, of course, 
there was trouble, for Tetzel had been given permission 
by the pope, the head of the church, to sell indulgences. 
An effort was made to get Luther to take back these 
objections, but, being a man of great sincerity and cour- 
age, he refused to do this. So he was cut off from the 
church. Nothing disheartened, however, he set up a 
church of his own, which was called for him the Lutheran 
church. 


This action on the part of the German monk and the 
success he met with among the people encouraged others 
in Europe to rebel, who had a grievance against the pope 
or the church, for the spirit of revolt was in the air. In 
England King Henry the Eighth got his chief minister, 
the bishop of Canterbury, to revise the beliefs of the 
English church and to bring about a separation from the 
mother church. Thus arose the Church of England, or 
the Episcopal church. A similar thing took place in Scot- 
land under Knox, in Switzerland under Zwingli, in 
France under Calvin. And so in these countries Protes- 
tantism was established. 


These Reformers, as they are called, did not reform 
the Church to any considerable extent then, as they are 
What the often thought to have done. And certainly 
Reformers they did not restore the religion of Jesus, 
did. nor did they give us a new revelation from 
heaven. They did, however, correct some abuses in the 
Church, like the selling of indulgence. The principal 


THE FORKS OF THE ROAD 25 


work of these men lies elsewhere. They broke the terrible 
power of the Romish church over the minds of men, 
for one thing; and, for another, they placed the Bible in 
the hands of all who could read, as the light by which 
they should walk, with the advice to study it and to act 
for themselves, without waiting to be told what to do 
in religious matters. 

After this, men arose who protested against the forms 
and teachings of some of the Protestant sects. John 
Wesley, for one, wanted to change certain things in the 
Church of England, of which he was a preacher, but he 
wished to do so with the approval of that denomination. 
When he was refused this privilege, he taught on the 
highways and byways of England. During his long and 
really useful life he won a great following, which, after 
his death, was organized into the Methodist church. 

But division, once having got such a good start, kept 
on apace. For now we have seventeen different kinds of 
Baptists, twenty-one of Lutherans, and twenty-two of 
Methodists. 

So you see that in the field of religion people are, more 
than ever, standing at the forks of the road in a very real 
sense these days. To be sure, there is a way in which 
each one may find an answer to his question as to 
which of the churches he should join, just as the Prophet 
Joseph Smith found out. For the Lord has made it clear 
in our day which of the many roads, religiously, we ought 
to take, as we shall learn farther on in this book. 


QUESTIONS 
1. Does it make any difference whether one belongs to a 
church or not? Why? 


2. Does it make any difference which church one belongs to? 
Why? 
3, What difference did it make to Joseph Smith? 


CHAPTER III 
THE WAY OUT OF THE WOODS 


In one of those wonderful parables in the New Testa- 
ment Jesus tells us of a woman who had ten pieces of 
Tas money, and lost one of them. The loss dis- 

osing and ' : 
finding tressed her greatly. Lighting a candle, she 
things. swept the house thoroughly, searching ev- 
erywhere for the missing coin. No nook or crevice 
escaped her attention. At last she found the money. So 
great was her joy that she “called her friends and neigh- 
bors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found 
that which I had lost.’ ” 


We have all had an experience of this kind. It may 
have been money, or it may have been something we 
prized more highly than money. Whatever it was, we 
were troubled over the loss, and we hunted for the object 
everywhere, hoping to find it. And when we found it, if 
we did, our joy went beyond all bounds. We prized the 
thing far more highly, very likely, than before we lost 
it. Tor that is the way with us. 


Now, the world, between the days of our Savior’s 
personal ministry in the flesh and the opening of the 
nineteenth century, lost something of far greater worth 
than money or what money can buy. Do you know 
what that is? It is the Priesthood, the power by which 
men are saved. And the strange thing about this loss is, 
that only a comparatively few even discovered the loss 
or made an attempt to replace it. Of course, the world 
lost a great many things besides the Priesthood, such as 
the correct form of baptism, the healing power, the form 


THE WAY OUT OF THE WOODS 27 


of government which the Lord instituted in the Church, 
and its essential offices; but by far the most important 
of these losses was the Priesthood, for with true priest- 
hood every other spiritual loss can be easily replaced. 
What is priesthood? 
If you were going into a distant country with the in- 
tention of staying there for some time, you would most 
likely ask a friend to transact your business 
Paani ig, for you while you were away. You would 
perhaps give him a letter of instructions to 
guide him, telling him what to do under this or that 
circumstance. Whatever your friend did, as long as he 
followed your instructions, would be as binding as if you 
did it yourself. This we call “power of attorney.” If, 
however, he should disregard your directions in a par- 
ticular case and you should therefore withdraw his author- 
ity, he could no longer act in your name with any bind- 
ing effect. After that, nothing he did for you would be 
valid, as we say. 


Again, to take another case, suppose you were born 
and grew up in a foreign country, say England or France, 
and afterwards came to the United States. Suppose 
further that you wished to be admitted to citizenship in 
this country. Now, everything would depend on what 
court you went into for this purpose and what you did 
there. For you could not go into any court; you would 
have to go into some particular court. If you went before 
a judge who had received his authority from the proper 
source and if you took the necessary oath and signed the 
necessary papers, you would thereafter be a full-fledged 
citizen of the American nation. But if you went before a 
judge who had not been given the necessary authority, or 


28 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


if you should go before a judge who had received this 
authority and afterwards been deprived of it, it would 
be of no avail whatever, when you came to exercise the 
rights of citizenship, even though you had taken the 
proper oath and signed the proper papers, following the 
usual practice in every detail. 


It is something like this in the Church of Christ. The 
Lord at various times appoints men to act in His name— 
to baptize, to lay on hands in ordination and healing, to 
appoint others to act in His name, and so on. To be 
sure, the Lord would not recognize any act by persons 
so appointed unless it was in itself a good act or unless 
it was done in a spirit of “persuasion, gentleness, meek- 
ness, kindness, love, and pure knowledge,” but if it was 
performed in accordance with these principles, it would 
be as valid as if it were done by Him in person. This 
divine authority is known as “priesthood.” It is the 
means through which men may communicate with God, 
obtaining instructions as to what to do and how to do it. 

Here we are, on the one hand, in the world of the 
flesh. Our spirits, the eternal part of us, is in a cage, the 
body, where it can see only a certain distance out, through 
the windows of the cage. There, on the other hand, is 
the world where our Father, the father of our spirits, 
dwells, and where the spiritual forces of the world about 
us have their center. In order for us, here to know any- 
thing about Him, there, He must impart the information 
to us; we cannot otherwise gain any knowledge of Him. 
Now, priesthood, whether in us or in other men in our 
world, is the channel through which this communication 


is possible; just as, to compare small things with great, 
a wire or the air may be the medium through which the 


THE WAY OUT OF THE WOODS 29 


human voice may be carried from one point to another. 
That is how important priesthood, divine authority, is to 
the human family. 


Now, this priesthood Jests gave to His apostles in 

the days of His personal ministry on earth. They were 
Priesthood to perform ordinances, and to establish the 
given in the Church everywhere. His commission to 
days of ; : . 
Christ. them, which you may read in Saint Mark, 
is: ‘‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall 
be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And 
these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name 
shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new 
tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink 
any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay 
hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” 


The twelve apostles, with Peter at the head, did as they 
were instructed. They preached the gospel to the Gentiles 
as well as to the Jews. And the signs promised by Jesus 
followed believers everywhere. As the apostles died, one 
~ way and another, such men as Paul and Matthias and 
Barnabas took their places. The Church grew by leaps 
and bounds in spite of persecution. 


Presently, however, a different spirit came over the 
Church. We do not know exactly when or how it first 
ee ane appeared, but when we see the changes that 
priesthood took place, we are sure that it came. The 
was lost. quorum of apostles was not continued. The 
signs not only ceased, but were not considered necessary 
any more. Various ordinances, like baptism and the sac- 
rament, were altered so that the first teachers of the 
Church would not have been able to recognize them. For 


30 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


instance, sprinkling water on the forehead of infants took 
the place of dipping the whole body of the adult in water ; 
and the simple eating of bread and drinking of wine in 
remembrance of Christ’s death was displaced by what 
came to be called by the long name of “transubstantia- 
tion”’—that is, the belief that the bread and the wine of 
the sacrament became, after the blessing of the priest, 
the actual flesh and blood of Jesus. Then too the 
priesthood, which was intended for every man, came to be 
possessed by only a few—a trained clergy. During the 
Middle Ages, the Church leaders ruled with force and 
threats instead of with gentleness and love and persuasion. 





Thus by slow degrees the Church, long before the di- 
visions took place of which we have spoken, lost all 
semblance to the organization that had been formed by 
the apostles of Jesus. It lost not only the priesthood, 
but the very spirit of the religion of Jesus. It answered 
perfectly to the description given by the Lord to Joseph 
Smith: The people “draw near me with their lips, but 
their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the 
commandments of men; they have a form of godliness, 
but they deny the power thereof.” 

The great purpose of the Restoration, therefore, was 
to bring back the true priesthood. Through this power 
Parnes and light would come not only the spirit of 
of the the gospel, but also a knowledge of God to- 
Restoration. gether with the correct forms of worship, 
ordinances, principles and whatever else may be necessary 

-for man’s salvation. 

How happy the world should be, then, that in this age 
God has again spoken to men and restored “that which 
was lost” through negligence and sin. Over this fact 


THE WAY OUT OF THE WOODS 31 


there should be universal rejoicing on the earth, as over 
something that has been found again—‘‘the pearl of 
great price.:’ 

QUESTIONS 


1. Do any of you hold the priesthood? 
2. What difference should there be between a boy who holds 
the priesthood and one who does not? 


CHAPTER IV | 
A NEW MESSAGE TO THE WORLD 


If you saw a man going toward a high precipice which 
he did not know was there and it meant certain death 


Purpose for him if he went on, you would exert 
of the : ‘ 

Rettoration ae oe effort in your power to save him, 
two-fold. would you not? So, too, if you should 


see a young man, full of the promise of great things, 
suddenly take to swearing and smoking and drinking and 
stealing and otherwise leading a bad life, you would be 
glad to warn him of the end he would surely come to if 
he persisted, and to point out a way by which he might 
realize the best that was in him. And what a wonderful 
act it would be on your part if you could only pursuade - 
either of these persons to alter his course and to take up a 
better way! ; | 
Indeed, God has often done this very thing. He 
is in a position to know what lies at the end of our path 
much better than we are, because He knows all things, 
both past and future. In the days of Noah He saw which 
way the people were going, that they were in the ways of 
wickedness. So He warned them through Noah that 
destruction awaited them if they did not repent. They 
did not repent, and the threatened destruction came upon 
all but the patriarch Noah and seven others. On another 
occasion God called Jonah to warn the inhabitants of 
Nineveh, one of the great cities of the ancient world. 
In this case the people mended their ways and were 
spared. On our own continent, when the Lord saw how 
the Jaredites were living and knew they were going to- 


A NEW MESSAGE TO THE WORLD 33 


ward the precipice, He reached out his hand to save 
them. But they would not stop nor alter their course, 
and they fell headlong over the edge of it. When we 
pause to reflect on the condition of the Jews at the 
time of Christ, we can easily believe that one of the 
\purposes of the ministry of Christ was to save the people 
from the terrible things that awaited them if they did not 
repent. 

Now the Lord has a message for the world to-day. This 
message is double. On the one hand, it is one of warn- 
ing as to what will befall the inhabitants of the earth 
if they do not repent, and, on the other hand, it is one 
of admonition to prepare for some very important events 
in the future. 


Let us take up each of these separately. 

In many passages of the revelations to the Prophet 
Joseph Smith God has expressed his displeasure at the 
Warnings of way people live nowadays. He is repre- 
eave sented in one of these as being “angry” with 
to-day. them and as having a “sword” ready to let 
fall on “them that dwell on the earth.’ The reason is 
that men have strayed from the path of righteousness, 
that they are following their own bent instead of the 
still small voice within them. They think more of dress 
and money and property and what people say of them 
than they do of what is for their best good in the long 
run. Although in some respects we are to-day far in 
advance of anything the world has ever known before,— 
for we have railroads, automobiles, telephones, telegraphs, 
radio, airships, and machinery for almost everything we 
need,—still in matters that count much more than these 
things people are in much the same class as those who 


34 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


lived in the days of Noah, who were destroyed on ac- 
count of their wickedness. | 

Nothing can show more clearly the sad state of things 
in the world than the great war through which the na- 
tions have just passed, where whole peoples 
What the spent all their energy in killing one another, 
war shows. ‘ : 

when they might have occupied themselves 
in some good work; and in the further fact that the na- 
tions of the earth, now after the war (1924), refuse to 
get together in any really helpful way, so full of jealousy 
and suspicion are they. 

It is not a good thing to dwell too much on this dark 
side of the world. But once in a while it is necessary 
to know the facts if we would really improve. At least, 
we must see things as they are, especially when the Lord 
points them out to us in order to have us improve. 

As a result of this state of affairs in the world the 
elders of the Church are commanded by the Lord to 
“warn sinners unto repentance.”- It is even made the 
duty of “every man who -has been warned to warn his 
neighbor,” in order that every one may be “left without 
excuse.” [or there are some terrible things to fall upon 
mankind unless they repent. Nor is any one to escape 
who does not do so. For only through repentance is 
there any way of salvation. 

That is the ugly side of the picture. But there is a 
beautiful side too. For the message of the gospel as 
revealed to the “Mormon” prophet, like that of the ancient 
apostles, is one of “glad tidings.” 

You have often heard, no doubt, of the Millennium. 
This is a period to which the saints of every age have 


A NEW MESSAGE TO THE WORLD 35 


The looked forward with joyful anticipation. It 
Restoration— js to be a thousand years in length, the sab- 
per hearse bath, or rest-period, of the earth. During 
this period there will be universal peace—no hatred be- 
tween man and man or between man and beast. The 
lamb and the lion, as the hymn declares, shall “lie down 
together without any harm.” Swords shall be beaten 
into plowshares and spears into pruning-hooks. Satan - 
shall have no power to tempt people as he does now, and 
so our desires will be more inclined to good. The earth 
will be sanctified for our benefit, men’s salvation will 
there be completed, and all will be judged according to 
their deeds. Precious knowledge of the past and the 
present and of the heavens and the earth, will be revealed 
in abundance. The whole world will be a universal 
brotherhood. 

But the human family must be prepared for that won- 
derful period. It cannot come on us suddenly in a night. 
For it is indeed a far cry from our present time of strife 
and selfishness and hate to a period of universal peace 
and love. Now, the means by which men are to be pre- 
pared for the Millennium is the gospel that Jesus taught 
nineteen hundred years ago and that He revealed again 
to Joseph Smith, with its priesthood to keep open con- 
tinuously the line of communication between God and 
man. 

It is a good thing once in a while to ask ourselves, 
“In which direction are we headed? Are we going to- 
ward the precipice or towards the meadows and the clear 
streams? Is there anything in our life of which we have 
cause to repent? Are we looking forward anxiously to 
the time when we shall live with Christ on the earth a 


36 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


thousand years? And are we doing our share in pre- 
paring the world for that reign of universal peace and 
brotherhood ?” 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is a message? Give instances. 

2. How important is a message the Lord has for mankind 
as compared with a message one man may have for another, 
- or a ruler for his people? 


There is a time when the ground is being cleared and 
plowed and harrowed; when the tender seed, of what- 
ever kind, is being planted in the soft, warm earth; when, 
under the influence of the gentle rain and the coaxing 
stn, the green blade peeps through and shoots up into 
the receiving air; and when the growing crop needs all 
the watchcare of the eager husbandman, during the days 
of the spring floods and the summer’s scorching heat. 

There also is such a time in the history of the Latter- 
day work which God, the great Husbandman, wrought— 
days of preparation, of planting, of great solicitude, of 
patient waiting. This is the period when the world and 
a prophet had to be prepared to receive the Truth, when 
new ideas had to be made known and old ones restored, 
when these must be taken care of till they grew and 
became thoroughly established in the hearts of men. 
It is the period of late spring and early summer in 
church history. 


CHAP DE RaW 
A BOY AT THE CROSS ROADS 


There are few sensations more distressing than that 
of being lost in a great city. You wander about seeking 
The some clue by which you may escape from 
sensation of your strange surroundings. You ask now 
being lost. this person and now that, some of whom 
are as unfamiliar with the streets as you are, and others 
of whom either give you wrong directions or directions 
you cannot understand. With what relief you at last 
find a map of the city or a guide-book, something you 
can rely upon. 

This was essentially the situation in which the boy 
Joseph Smith found himself a little more than a hun- 
dred years ago. Only, it was not in a great strange city. 
but in the midst of a rather large number of churches. 
This chapter tells how he experienced that feeling of 
being lost and of finding his directions from a wonderful 
Guide-book. 


By birth Joseph Smith the “Mormon” Prophet, was 
a New England lad, having been born in Vermont two 
Bias ae before the Christmas of 1805. His 
boyhood of parents had brought the family of ten from 
Joseph Smith. Sharon, where Joseph was born, first to 
Palmyra and then to Manchester, when the Prophet was 
in his tenth year. The journey had been made in a rude 
wagon, perhaps covered, the mother taking complete 
charge, because the father had gone before to prepare a 
home. 


A BOY AT THE CROSS ROADS 39 


When Joseph was a child he had typhus fever, of 
which he was sick for two weeks. One day while recov- 
ering from this illness he suddenly cried out in great 
distress from a pain in his shoulder. It was produced by 
a fever sore, which, when lanced by a doctor, discharged 
about a quart of pus. Then the pain shot down into the 
leg, which began to swell and to give him much agony. 
An operation was decided upon. Several pieces of bone 
were extracted, and thus the leg was saved. As there 
was no way in those days of deadening pain during an> 
operation, you may imagine that Joseph must have suf- 
fered greatly. The physician wanted to tie him down 
after the fashion of the time, but this the patient refused 
to have done. . 

Joseph learned at school to read, to write, and to do 
simp!e problems in arithmetic. The schools were not 
such as we have to-day in the United States, even in 
towns far removed from the large cities. Usually they 
were held in small log cabins. There were but three 
subjects taught—reading, writing, and arithmetic. Few 
books were in use there, the teachers were poorly pre- 
pared, boarding ’round with the families according to 
the number of children attending the school. As Joseph 
lived in the country where there was farm work to do, 
he did not attend school for more than a few weeks in 
the year, and that during the winter months. 

For his father was a farmer during the greater part 
of his life. The family was never very well off as to this 
world’s goods. It was a large family, even as families 
went in those days, and Joseph and his brothers had to 
work hard to help their father clear the land of trees 
and brush and to plant and harvest the crops. The 


40° , OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


mother painted and sold oilcloth coverings for tables, 
stands, and other household articles, to help out the 
family purse. 

The Prophet’s father and mother were named Joseph 
and Lucy. They were married at Tunbridge, Vermont. 

The early home of the Smiths was in Massa- 
Joseph’s chusetts, that of the Macks—the mother’s 
ancestry. ; ; : 

family—was in -Connecticut, from which 
States both branches had been driven by financial re- 
verses. Failure of crops for three successive years in 
Norwich, their last home in Vermont, caused the Smith 
family to move to Western New York, which was then 
a pioneer district. 

Joseph’s ancestors were humble. On neither side of 
the house, it seems, was there any ambition to cut a figure 
in the world. Simple farm-folk in the main, they were 
content to live a simple life. 

Lucy’s grandparents had been tolerably well-to-do. 
Her father, Solomon Mack, wrote a narrative of his mil- 

itary exploits, in a rather entertaining style. 
His mother’s. Her brother, Stephen, helped to found 

Detroit, Michigan, where he became a pros- 
perous merchant. War heroes abounded in her family. 
Lucy herself appears to have been a woman of consid- 
erable energy and common sense. 

The father, a mild-tempered, thoughtful man, was a 
descendant of Robert Smith, who came to America from 

England before the middle of the seven- 
His father’s, teenth century. Asael Smith, grandfather 
of the Prophet, had more than the average 
of both means and character. The son, father of the 
Prophet, now a farmer, had once engaged in trade with 


A BOY AT THE CROSS ROADS 41 


a firm in China, but left commerce when he was swindled 
out of his earnings by his partner in business. The 
Smiths, too, could boast of some veterans of the wars 
in which the country had been engaged. 

Both the Smiths and the Macks, it appears, were of a 


strongly religious bent; and although some of them held 
views very different from their neighbors, they were 


devout believers in God as the Father of all men, in 
Jesus as the Redeemer of the world, in the Bible as the 
word of God, and in the church as a means of salva- 
tion. It was therefore a religious home into which 
Joseph Smith was born and in which he was reared. 

During the winter of 1819-20, when Joseph was in his 

fifteenth year, there took place in Manchester and the 
neighborhood what was called a religious 
an vane revival. If you have never been at any such 
gatherings, you will be interested in know- 
ing what one is like. 

In those days, as always, there were ‘‘backsliders” from 
the church. These it was necessary to bring to the fold 
again in some way. The usual way then was to hold a 
series of religious meetings, where the most famous 
revivalists did the talking. Sometimes a single denomi- 
nation engaged in this work, but generally several 
churches conducted it jointly. The purpose of such meet- 
ings was to rouse the feelings of the people to a high 
pitch, and the preachers who could do this were in most 
favor. And such gatherings! People came from great 
distances to them, often leaving their work and staying 
till they were over and everybody had “got religion.” 


The torments of sinners after death were depicted in 
the most vivid and terrifying manner, so as to scare the 


42 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


erring into joining the church and forsaking their sins. 
As a result of these lurid descriptions people did the most 
unseemly things. They shouted their amens to whatever 
they approved, they often cried and laughed in the same 
breath, as the saying goes, they sighed, they groaned, they 
prayed that God would not damn them forever, they 
prostrated themselves on the floor in their humiliation, 
they sometimes fell in a trance from which they did not 
recover for a long time. These trances were looked upon 
as great gifts of the Lord, given only to those whom He 
viewed with special favor. Then came the mourner’s 
bench, to which the converted were led, where they were 
supposed to say whether they were “‘saved” or not. 


It was this sort of revival that occurred in Manchester 
at this time. Three churches joined in carrying it on— 
the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists. There 
was great excitement. Every one became concerned for 
his soul. When the revival ended, and only then, the 
converted selected their church. It was at this point that 
difficulty arose, not only among the converts but among 
the ministers as well. For the preachers of the various 
denominations clamored in an undignified way for their 
share of the converts, while the converts became more 
and more perplexed to know which church to join. Most 
of them, however, found their way into some religious 
fold. 


The young Joseph was one of those who were ex- 

tremely puzzled. Both he and the other members of the 

family had taken a deep interest in the re- 

Joseph and vival, When it was over, four of the fam- 
the revival. ee . , 

ily, including Joseph’s mother, became Pres- 

byterians. Joseph, himself, was somewhat partial, he tells 


A BOY AT THE CROSS ROADS 43 


us, to the Methodists. But he could not make up his 
mind to join them. He turned the question over and 
Over again in his mind, without apparently being able to 
come to a decision. ‘Considering that all could not be 
right,” he says, speaking of the churches, “and that God 
could not be the author of confusion, I determined to 
investigate the subject more fully, believing that if God 
had a church, it would not be split up into factions, and 
that if he taught one society to worship one way and 
administer in one set of ordinances, he would not teach 
another, principles which were diametrically opposed.” 

In the midst of his perplexity, however, he took up one 
day the family Bible, that great Guide-book of Life, and 
there he found the plainest kind of directions by which 
he was enabled to clear up all his doubts and place in 
their stead an absolute certainty of the truth. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Tell of an incident that happened either to yourself or to 
someone else of being lost. 

2. In what way can one be lost religiously? How was the 
young boy, Joseph Smith, “lost” religiously? 

3. Have you found your way religiously? Explain how you 
have done so, if you have, or how you may do so, if you have 
not. (Remember, Joseph Smith was not yet fifteen when he had 
his first religious experience. ) 


ELA bel tee 


“THE LIGHT THAT NEVER WAS 
ON LAND OR SEA” 


Two girls, one very black night, were driving in an 
automobile through a dangerous canyon. They were 
... alone, and had never been that way before. 
The necessity 
of having Over narrow dugways that looked down 
a light. hundreds of feet into a roaring stream, past 
giant boulders and huge pine trees, the car wound its 
uncertain way upward round sharp curves. Only one 
thing saved the girls from a horrible death, and that was 
a spotlight, which one of them kept flashing here and 
there so as to show now a rock, now a precipice brink, 
now a dangerous curve ahead. 

Life is very much like this canyon road. It is full of 
dangers and pitfalls. The way is new to all of us. More- 
over, our own lights are too dim to enable us to see the 
things that may lure us to certain death. Besides, many 
objects are not what they seem. The shadow on this 
side may be hiding a yawning cavern or, on that side, a 
granite wall against which we may dash out our brains. 
And here too there is but one light that can save us—the 
Light of the Christ. This is the light that Joseph Smith 
saw and heeded on that memorable occasion of the First 
Vision, to which we have now come. 


Joseph Smith, as we have said, was born and reared 
in a religious home. It is not at all surprising, therefore, 
that the boy, during his moments of doubt, 

Joseph reads went to the Scriptures for light. And this 
the Bible. ? ei : 
is the less surprising when we consider that 


THE LIGHT 45 


he was always looked upon by his relatives as a quiet, 
thoughtful boy. 


One time during his reading he came upon the follow- 
ing words in the Epistle of James: “If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men lib- 
erally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” It 
appeared that this happened when his doubts had reached 
the climax, and his perplexity was the greatest. 


The effect of this passage was like an electric shock. 
He paused over the divine words. It was as if they had 
been written with his condition in mind. 
Nothing could fit his case more perfectly. 
He lacked wisdom, for which of the 
churches in his neighborhood he should join, he did not 
know. And he was encouraged to ask by the promise 
that his request for light should be answered and that he 
would not be upbraided for the asking. But he hesitated. 
Who was he that he should go before the Lord? Besides, 
he had never in all his life prayed aloud, as many of those 
had who had “got religion” at the revivals. Still, the 
more he thought over the matter, the more he decided to 
put to the test the sacred words. 


Accordingly, one beautiful, clear day in the early spring 
of 1820, more than a hundred years ago, he retired to 
a small grove near his father’s house, determined to pray 
for an answer to his question. He had selected this 
secluded spot beforehand. Not for a moment did he 
doubt that his petition for light would be granted. In 
the words of James, which he must have read before the 
passage just quoted, he was going to the Lord “‘in faith, 
nothing wavering.” 

Arriving at the place where he had decided to pray, he 


Effect on 
him. 


46 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


looked around him to see that he was alone, and finding 

that he was, he knelt down and “began to 
A vision. offer up the desires of his heart to God.” 

He had no sooner done so, however, than 
he was seized by some power which entirely bound his 
tongue so that he could not speak. Moreover, thick dark- 
ness gathered round him. It appeared for a time as if he 
were doomed to destruction. He was grappling with the 
power of “some actual being from the unseen world,” a 
power such as he had never felt before in his life. Exert- 
ing all his strength, he called silently upon the Lord to 
deliver him from this enemy of his soul. At this moment 
of greatest alarm he saw a pillar of light exactly over his 
head, more brilliant than the brightness of the sun. This 
pillar gradually descended till it enveloped him in its glo- 
rious light. At this moment, too, the darkness dis- 
appeared, and with it the power of evil. 


As the light approached him he beheld in it two per- 
sonages standing above him in the air. The brightness 
of them was beyond all description, exceeding anything 
he had ever seen before. These two glorious personages 
“exactly resembled each other in features and likeness.” 
One of them, pointing to the other, said, “Joseph, this is 
my beloved Son, hear Ham.” 

His object in coming to this place to pray was, as we 
have said, to inquire of the Lord which church he should 
join. As soon therefore as he could collect himself, he 
asked the momentous question. The answer must have 
surprised him somewhat. For he was told that all the 
churches were wrong and that he must not join any of 
them. He was further informed that all their creeds 
were ‘“‘an abomination” in the sight of the Lord, that they 


THE LIGHT 47 


had “the form of godliness” but denied the power thereof, 
and that they “taught for doctrine the commandments of 
men.” A second time he was forbidden to join any of 
the churches.» Among the things he was told on this 
occasion was that “at some future time the fulness of the 
gospel should be made known” to him. 

When the vision closed and the Personages had dis- 
appeared together with the light, Joseph found himself 

lying on his back, looking upward. He was 
After the utterly exhausted. On recovering himself 
vision. ; 

somewhat he went to the house, the condi- 
tion of his body showing in his face. As he leaned up 
to the fire-place, his mother’s quick eye detected that 
something was the matter, and to her inquiry he answered 
that he was ‘well enough.” A moment later he added, 
“T have learned that Presbyterianism is not true.” This 
was, as you may remember, the church his mother had 
joined after the recent revival. 

A few days later Joseph happened to be in the com- 
pnay of a Methodist minister, one who had been very 
active in the religious revival just closed. They con- 
versed on the subject of religion. The boy very nat- 
urally related the vision he had received. No doubt he 
imagined that his friend would be greatly pleased that 
Joseph had had a religious “experience,” for that was 
what every one converted at a revival was supposed to 
have in order to be “saved.” But to his great surprise 
the preacher treated his communication not only lightly 
but with great contempt. “It is all of the devil,” he said. 
“There are no such things as visions and revelations in 
these days, they ceased with the apostles, and there never 
will be any, more of them.” 


48 OUR CHURCH’ AND PEOPLE 


Joseph found that his telling the story of the vision 
subjected him to “great persecution” in the neighbor- 
hood. No one, of course, believed it, outside of his own 
family. Every one else ridiculed the idea.. Nevertheless 
it created a deal of excitement, especially among the re- 
ligious. Although the converts of the various churches — 
were, a little while before, quarreling about which was 
the true church, still just now they were united as in a 
common cause to embarrass an innocent country boy, who 
was without. wealth or influence in the world. Some of 
those who thus harassed him were “of high standing” in 
the community. 

“It caused me serious reflection then, and often has 
since,” he said in after years, “how very strange it was 

that an obscure boy of a little over fourteen 
Joseph’s years of age, and one, too, who was doomed 
reflections. . Nie : 

to the necessity of obtaining a scanty main- 
tenance by his daily labor, should be thought a character 
of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the 
great ones of the most popular sects of the day, and in a 
manner to create in them a spirit of the most bitter perse- 
cution and reviling. 

“However, it was nevertheless a fact that I had be- 
held a vision. I had seen a light, and in the midst of 
the light I saw two personages, and they did in reality 
speak to me. And though I was hated and persecuted 
for saying that I had seen a vision, yet it was true; and 
while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speak- 
ing all manner of evil against me, falsely, for so saying, 
I was led to say in my heart, Why persecute me for tell- 
ing the truth? I have actually seen a vision, and who, 
am I that I can withstand God? Or why does the world 





The Sacred Grove, Where the First Vision Took Place 
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THE PERSONAGES OF THE VISION Sia 


think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For 
I had seen a vision. I knew it, and I knew that God 
knew it; and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it. 
At least, I knew that by so doing I would offend God and 
come under his condemnation.” 

Joseph’s mind was now at rest concerning the question 
as to which of the churches was right. He did not, of 
course, join any of them. The Great Light had flashed 
on his pathway, showing him the whole road before him. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is a physical light used for? When is it used? 
What would be our condition if we had no light, except the sun? 

2. What is the spiritual light in us all? (Christ describes it 
as “the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world.’ ) 

3. What does this light enable us to see? When should we 
use it? What may we be led to expect as the result of always 
walking in this light? 


CHAPTER VII 


THE PERSONAGES OF THE VISION 


Who were these Personages that appeared to the young 

boy, Joseph Smith? What did they look like? This is 

very important, we must remember, for of 

Rerive pany all the religious teachers since the New 

Testament times, the Prophet Joseph Smith 

is the only man who even claims to have seen and talked 

with God face to face. What he says of the Lord, there- 

fore, is far more valuable and informing, to say the 

least, than what some one tells us who has never seen 
Him. 

One of our most interesting American historians, John 
Fiske, tells us in an amusing passage that when he was 
a boy his picture of God was “a tall, slender man, of 
acquiline features, wearing spectacles, with a pen in his 
hand and another behind his ear.” This man always 
stood behind a long desk in an office without a roof with 
several ledgers open in front of him ready to set down 
the good and bad deeds of the boys and girls in the 
world. And a lady once said, after reading Mr. Fiske’s 
description, that as a child she had much the same picture 
of God, only in her case God was so terrible to look upon 
that whenever she imagined herself in heaven she ven- 
tured merely to peep at Him from out the ample folds of 
her aunt’s skirt. 


What picture do you have of God? What does He 
look like? If you should see Him would you be afraid? 
There is nothing in all the world so important as to 


THE PERSONAGES OF THE VISION 53 


have correct ideas concerning God. A person may be 
Importance known by the God he worships. No one 
he Saat can be truly religious unless he believes in 
God. | God, and certainly one cannot have a church 
without God. This is why the Prophet Joseph Smith 
placed at the head of our Articles of Faith, “We believe 


in God, the eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus Christ, 
and in the Holy Ghost.” The articles of faith of other 


churches also begin with a statement about Deity. Our 
Savior too, makes belief in God very important. “This 
is life eternal,” he says, “that they might know thee the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” 
In order to exercise intelligent faith in the religious sense 
one must have, first, an idea that God does actually exist, 
secondly, a correct idea of his character and attributes, 
and thirdly, a knowledge that one’s course of life is ac- 
cording to his will. 


As a matter of fact, in no respect was modern Christ- 
ianity so much mistaken in Joseph Smith’s time as in its 
notions of God. That is why, it seems, the New Dis- 
pensation was opened by a vision of the Father and the 
Son. The angel spoken of by the Apostle John as “flying 
in the midst of heaven” and having “the everlasting gos- 
pel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth” was to 
tell “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” 
that they must worship “Him that made heaven, and 
earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” So 
you see that one of the purposes, perhaps the main pur- 
pose, of the First Vision was to restore to the world the 
true notion of Deity. 

But how do we learn to know about God? 

Doubtless, one of the ways by which we may learn of 


54 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Him is through observation of his works. Said an 
Ways in ancient king of the Jews: “The heavens 
eee declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
about God. showeth his handiwork. Day unto day ut- 
tereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.” 
The majesty of the clear sky with the moon and stars 
shining, is beyond all expression. Then again consider 
the regularity with which the sun rises and sets, the sea- 
sons come and go, the undeviating exactness of the laws 
of nature. From all these things we may easily know 
that the Power back of what we see is intelligent. 


Another way in which we may obtain knowledge con- 
cerning God is to study what He has said to man about 
himself. This is called revelation. No man can “by 
searching find out God” or know “the Almighty unto 
perfection.” Therefore if we are to learn anything very 
definite and clear about Him, this knowledge must evi- 
dently come from the Lord himself. Revelation, not 
what man may say from his own “research,” is the only 
dependable source ef information concerning God. The 
Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the writings of Joseph 
Smith, all contain instances where the Lord has revealed 
himself to man—to Abraham, to Moses, to the Brother of 
Jared, to our modern Prophet. 


Perhaps the best way to learn about God is to study 
the personality of Jesus Christ as it is revealed in the 
New Testament. The Son is the portrait of the Father. 
Christ is like God in form. One of the writers of the 
New Testament tells us that Jesus is the “express image” 
of the Father. And the Prophet Joseph informs us that 
the two Personages that appeared to him, who were the 
Father and the Son, “exactly resembled each other in 


THE PERSONAGES OF THE VISION 55 


features and likeness.” But not only in form are these 
two Personages alike, they resemble each other in other 
particulars. For the sacred books assure us that they 
have similar attributes. Jesus always spoke of himself 
as one with the Father, declaring himself, in fact, as 
God. 

‘Now then, the question becomes, What kind of being 
was our Savior when he dwelt in the flesh? 

For one thing, he had a body just as we have—a body 
with a head and trunk, with hands and feet, with eyes 


What we and ears and a tongue, and all the organs we 
rae one possess. And it was as susceptible as ours, 
is God. we may be sure, to the blasts of winter, the 


wind and dust and heat of summer, the fragrance of the 
lily and the rose, and the grasp of a friendly hand. What 
his appearance was in detail—whether he was fair or 
dark in complexion, tall and slender or otherwise, hand- 
some or without comliness—we are left in doubt. So far 
as we know, there are no photographs or portraits of 
our Lord. The pictures we have of him are from the 
imagination of the artists. But that he had a body with 
weight and height and organs, we are as certain as of 
anything we know of him. 
Although Christ died, as every one else must die, and 
although his body was laid in the tomb, as ours will be, 
when we die, still it was raised from the 
ers a dead in the resurrection—the same body that 
was placed so carefully in the sepulchre by 
the loving hands of his friends. That it was the same 
body that he had before his death, is clear from Christ’s 
appearance afterward. On many occasions he made him- 
self known to those who had followed him in mortality. 


56 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Thomas, one of the apostles, and a very critical man, was 
invited by Jesus to touch the wounds in his side and 
hands and feet, that all shadow of doubt might be dis- 
pelled as to whether it was the risen Lord. And then 
too when Jesus, after the resurrection, appeared to the 
Nephites in America, the people looked upon these same 
wounds and were invited to touch them. Besides, our 
Savior ate material food—broiled fish—with his disciples 
after his resurrection from the dead. All of these things 
go to show that Jesus Christ, our Savior, and one of the 
Godhead, has a body of flesh and bone. And if the Son 
has a body, so has the Father, for they are in the exact 
likeness of each other. 


Jesus had wonderful power—more, to say the least, 
than any mere man that has ever lived, however great. 
He had power over the natural forces of the 
He has all é ; 
power and world, for he turned water into wine, made 
knowledge. 4 few loaves and fishes into enough to feed 
thousands, and stilled the tempest on the sea of Galilee. 
He had power over the forces that work in the human 
body, since he made the blind to see, the lame to walk, 
the paralytic to leap with joy, and even the dead to come 
to life again. He had power over the forces of the mind 
and those that operate in the spiritual world, for he was 
able to read men’s thoughts before they were uttered, to 
cast out.devils from the human body, and to call down 
angels from heaven to minister to his wants. So when 
we go to the Lord for refuge in time of need, we may 
do so in the utmost confidence that he has the power to 
help us. | 


Do you admire a man who is brave and courageous, 
who can stand unafraid in the midst of the greatest 


THE PERSONAGES OF THE VISION 57 


pte dangers? Jesus, in his own person, when he 
courage and found on the temple lot those that sold oxen 
tenderness. and sheep and doves, and money-changers, 
made a whip of small cords, drove out both the animals 
and the owners, scattered the money, overturned the 
tables, and rebuked them that sold doves, saying, “Make 
not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.” And 
He faced the most painful of all deaths, the lingering 
death of the cross, in a spirit of quiet resignation and 
dignity, without complaint and without flinching. Do 
you admire the sweetness and the gentleness of life that 
rarely go with courage and strength, but that we find 
more often in the finest and best of mothers? Jesus was 
kinder and gentler than any woman. Little children, 
who know by instinct who are their friends, gathered 
round him and looked up eagerly into his strong face. Nor, 
although he hated sin with a deadly hatred, did he have 
anything but compassion for the sinner. To a woman 
whom the Jews had brought out to stone because she had 


been taken in sin, Jesus merely said, “Go thy way and 
sin no more!” 


Our Savior overflowed with love for all men and all 
things. And love is the greatest thing in life. He loved 


Tie hve the lily, springing out of its bed of mud but 
universal arrayed in a splendor more glorious than 
love. 


Solomon on his throne. He loved the sheep 
that bleated on the low hills of Palestine, even the lonely 
one that had strayed from the flock and had to be brought 
back in the tender arms of the shepherd. He loved the 
streams that flowed down from the hills of his beloved 
Galilee, and the lake where he sat in a boat and taught 
the people on the shore and whose troubled waves he had 


58 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


quieted once to still the terror of his disciples. But most 
of all, he loved men and women and children, no matter 
what their lot might be. He loved especially the poor and 
the unfortunate, those who had been overtaken by evil 
days and life’s hard circumstance. Greater love hath no 
man than to lay down his life for his friend, and Jesus 
laid down his life not only for his friends but also for 
his enemies and for all mankind. And this love is the 
same as the Father’s. “For God so loved the world that 
he gave his only begotten Son, that the world through 
him might be saved.” 

Now, as we have already said, as is the Son, so is the 
Father. God the Father has therefore a body “as tangible 
as man’s,” only immortalized and more glorious. Also 
he has the same attributes as we have just pointed out 
in our Savior—all power, all knowledge, gentleness, love, 
justice, mercy. So that when we are in trouble we can 
go to Him with absolute assurance that He will not upbraid 
us but will rush to our help. There is no need to fear 
God in the sense that our hearts are struck with terror 
when we think of Him in our wrong-doing, if we are 
only repentant in spirit. He is a being to approach with 
the same simple feeling of trust and love and faith that 
the fourteen-year-old Joseph had in that grove in Western 
New York. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Tell the class some of the ideas you have had about God. 
How do these agree with those given in this chapter? 

2. What does the word “Father” suggest to you as applied 
to God? In what way does this fact of fatherhood help us in 
our attitude toward Him? 

3. Read the vision of Deity (a) to the brother of Jared (Book 
of Mormon, Ether, chapter 3), (b) to Moses (Exodus ch. 33). 
and (c) to Joseph Smith (Hist. of Church, pp. 5, 6). Which of 
these is the clearest? Can you tell why? 


(Cra bsGra bale IN a! 
GOD’S WIRELESS 
The First Vision, as we have seen, came to Joseph in 


answer to a prayer he offered to the Lord. This is a 
wonderful fact—that a mere boy, not yet 


Joseph's fifteen, should be considered of so much 
visions 
aid us. — importance that He not only heard but an- 


swered this simple petition for light and guidance. How 
does the Lord hear and answer prayer? Do the tele- 
graph, the telephone, and the radio etisew any light on 
this question? 


First, let us settle in our minds the fact that eon does 
actually answer prayer. One of the best proofs of this 
is the very vision we have just considered, not only be- 
cause it is so near to our own time but also because it is 
so clear. 

Joseph was a mere boy. In his outward life there 
does not seem to have been anything different from that 
of other boys of his age and class. He did farm work 
like them, he studied the same books at school, he played 
the same games. But in another way he was different. 
He was more thoughtful. That is why, when he was 
troubled over religion, he went to God in the same simple 
trust that he would go to his earthly father to ask how 
he should plow a certain piece of land. And his prayer 
was answered. 

Not only on this occasion but all through his troubled 
life he took his questions to the Lord for an answer. 
Three years and a half later than this, when he was but 


60 OUR. CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


eighteen years old, he prayed again for light and for- 
giveness, and his desires were answered by the appear- 
ance of an angel, who told him of the Nephite Record. 
On many occasions while this golden book was in his 
possession he sought and received divine guidance 
through this same angel. If you will look into the con- 
ditions under which the early revelations of the Church 
were received, you will find that nearly all of them were 
given in answer to questions in the mind of the Prophet 
or his companions. Toward the end of his life Joseph 
told the Saints that he had found the Lord always willing 
to aid those who went to Him in simple trust and faith. 

To be sure, we must bear in mind that the Prophet was 
exceptional in some respects. He had been chosen of the 
Lord ‘to open the last dispensation of the gospel. It 
seemed necessary, although unusual, that so many beings 
from the unseen world should appear to him—the Father 
and the Son, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John the 
Revelator, Moroni, Moses, Elijah, and perhaps others. 
But this fact should not discourage us. Although our 
questions and work may not be so important to others 
as the Prophet’s, yet they are important to us, and we 
should not hesitate to go to the Lord for light or consola- 
tion in times of trouble. What Jesus said to His apostles 
about two thousand years ago—‘‘Ask, and it shall be 
given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall 
be opened unto you’’—is just as applicable to us as it was 
to them. Whoever truly realizes that God is our Father, 
in all that this word means, will never be afraid to ap- 
proach Him in times of trouble and doubt. 


Prayer may be ariswered in different ways. 
It may be answered by a personal visitation, as was 


GOD’S WIRELESS 61 


the case when Joseph Smith received the first vision and 
aye in the visions connected with the Book of Mor- 
which prayer mon. Three kinds of beings from the un- 
is answered. seen world may appear to man. These are, 
first, angels who are resurrected personages and who 
have bodies of flesh and bone; second, persons who 
have died but who have not yet been raised from the dead ; 
third, evil spirits who come to deceive. 


Prayer may be answered in the hearing of a voice ut- 
tered by a being from the invisible world, while the per- 
son himself is unseen. This occurred to President Wil- 
ford Woodruff once, when his life was in danger. It 
directed him, in the middle of the night, to rise and move 
his wagon, in which he was sleeping, from under a tree 
where it was. Without question, he did so. Immediately 
afterward the tree was blown down by a terrific gust of 
wind right across the place where the wagon had been. 


The most common way, however, for prayer to be 
answered is through the operations of the Spirit of God. 
One time the Lord told the Prophet Joseph Smith to issue 
a statement of warning to the world, promising that at 
the time of writing this article the power of the Holy 
Ghost should be upon him. Now, this Spirit, being every- 
where present, is able to bring things to pass, according 
to our prayers and the purposes of the Lord. 


A certain missionary to Ireland not long ago, finding 
that he was unable to support himself there, was on the 
point of being sent home on this account. He wished 
to stay and finish his mission. So he prayed secretly 
that the Lord would open the way for him to remain. 
On rising from his knees he had a strong feeling that his 
prayer would be answered. And it was. For about the 


62 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


time he was praying in Ireland a woman, a neighbor of 
his at home, visited his wife and offered to lend her a 
certain sum of money, which was to be paid back when 
the mission was over, and which proved to be just enough 
to keep the missionary there till the end. Of course, the 
money was accepted. The Spirit of the Lord had wrought 
upon the mind of this person to this end. 

Prayers differ in form according to their occasion. 

There is public prayer, in which one person “is mouth,” 
as we say, for a group, as when one offers the invocation 
or the benediction in a public gathering. On 


Various ; 
forms of such an occasion he who offers the prayer 
ony oe should consider the purpose of the meeting. 


The length of a prayer has nothing to do with its merits. 
It is sincerity and faith that count. 

Then there is family prayer. We are enjoined to pray 
in the family every morning and evening. All the mem- 
bers of the family that can do so should take part in this 
form of worship. It is a good thing to begin and end 
the day with thoughts of God instead of play or school 
or business. 

And, lastly, there is individual prayer. This is per- 
haps the most important. It is also the best test of one’s 
faith. For one may be very apt at praying in public, or 
even in the family, and not be at all sincere—which is the 
main thing. The prophets, it seems, liked to go out into 
the open—into groves and on mountain tops—to pray; 
for there they appeared to be nearer God. 

One of the safe-guards against impurity of life is a 
prayerful spirit. One is not likely to go very far astray 
pees who prays atten, especially in secret. One 
safe-guard writer says: “Prayer will stop a man from 
in life. sinning, and sinning will stop a man from 


GOD’S WIRELESS 63 


praying.’ The first religious act that we drop when we 
lose our faith is prayer, particularly individual prayer. 
Leaving off prayer is not a sign that we have thought a 
great deal, as some appear to think, but that we have 
thought too little. Nor is prayer something to be ashamed 
oi, ior the greatest men of the world have been prayerful 
men, as witness George Washington at Valley Forge, 
Abraham Lincoln before the crisis of the Civil War, and 
Woodrow Wilson in his morning devotions. After all is 
said and done, prayer is our last refuge in times of dis- 
tress, when we have exhausted every other means of con- 
solation. Prayer is a frame of mind toward God and man 
and things. 

As to how God knows when we pray and what we are 
saying, any one who is acquainted with the developments 

of modern science and who believes also in 
How God the power and goodness of God ought to 
hears prayer. : ? 

have no trouble in understanding, to some 
extent at least, that the Lord can actually hear us when 
we pray, if He so desires. 

The radio is enlightening on this very point. If you 
have a wireless instrument in your home and have in 
your hand a program of the radio concerts to be given 
on a particular evening in various cities. in the United 
States, you may listen in on music rendered at any one 
of them from the Atlantic to the Pacific, “tuning in” on 
the one you wish to hear. 


How perfectly wonderful that you can sit in your home 
in Utah or Idaho and listen to a lecture or a grand opera 
in San Francisco or New York! It shows what man 
may do when he sets his mind to discover the processes 
of the hidden world. But God knows not only the laws 


64 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


governing the radio but many other laws as yet unknown 
to us. And he uses these laws of sound and sight in a 
way that seems “unnatural” to man in his present stage of 
knowledge, but that will appear perfectly natural to us 
when we shall have reached a stage, if we ever do, when 
we can see the way it is done. Still, the little we know 
now of these laws enables us to believe more in the things 
that we see but do not understand, and to trust more 
implicitly in the power of God. Just as, in the radio, be- 
ing able to get “in tune” with this or that station—that is, 
getting the correct wave-lengths—is the main thing, so 
“tuning in” on the great thought of God is the principal 
thing if we would be in communication with Him. Only, 
religiously, we call this Faith. 


QUESTIONS 


Does prayer consist of words, or a frame of mind, or of 
0th ? 

2. Why should one pray? ‘What difference does it make in 
one’s daily life whether one prays or not? 

3. For whose benefit do we pray—God’s or our own? 

4. What should we pray for? (Read the Lord’s prayer—Matt. 
6:5-15—and classify the things enumerated there.) Which is 
the more important—to go before the Lord seeking material 
things or to go there seeking a right attitude toward life,’ the 
right spirit? 





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The Hill Cumorah, Where the Plates of the Book of Mormon Were Hidden 


CHAPTER IX 
THE BOOK WITH GOLDEN LEAVES 


Four books there are that are sacred to all Latter-day 
Saints. These are the Bible, which was given to the 
ancient inhabitants of Palestine; the Book 
Houtreacred of Mormon, which tells us of the ancient 
| inhabitants of America; the Doctrine and 
Covenants, which was revealed to the Saints of our own 
times; and the “‘Pearl of Great Price,” which contains, 
among other things, choice extracts from the Bible, and 
from the biography of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It 
contains, also, some of the writings of Abraham. Of 
the way in which we obtained the second of these vol- 
umes we are to learn in this chapter. 
On the night of September 21, 1823, Teen went to 
bed in a pensive mood. He had been thinking, no doubt, 
as he worked in the field that day, of the 


h’ J : 
J0seb nS wonderful vision he had received three and 
vision. a half years before, of the things that had 


happened to him between then and now, and of the proba- 
ble reason why he had been given no further heavenly 
manifestations, since he had been promised then that 
through him the fulness of the gospel should be made 
known to the world. And doubtless he looked at this and 
that temptation to which he had yielded and for whicn 
he had often condemned himself, to see if it might not 
after all be his sins that stood in the way of his obtain- 
ing favor with the Lord. That must have been a rest- 
less pillow on which he lay that night. 

He decided to pray. This had been his refuge once 


68 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


before, as it was to be on many occasions to come; and it 
had not failed him. Two things he prayed for—one that 
God would forgive his sins, and the other that He would 
give him a divine manifestation. He was certain that his 
prayer would be answered. Not very long had he been 
praying, when he perceived that his room was growing 
light, till it was lighter than day. At the same time he 
saw a man near the bed, standing in the air and sur- 
rounded by the most brilliant light. Joseph’s first impulse 
was of fear, but when the man looked at him with his 
kindly eyes and called him by name in the gentlest of 
voices, all fear left him. 


This strange visitor was Moroni. Dressed in a loose 
robe of the most exquisite whiteness, with bare head and 
hands and feet, he had come direct from the 
presence of God with a special message to 
the young man. More than fourteen hun- 
dred years before, Moroni had lived on the earth—in this 
very region of Manchester, in fact—but had been raised 
from the dead by the power of God. Before his death, 
however, Moroni had prepared a book of gold plates, on 
which was engraved the history of his people, the an- 
cestors of the ignorant and wandering tribes of American 
red men. This sacred volume, which now lay buried in 
a hill not far from Manchester, was to be given into the 
hands of Joseph, to be translated by him into English 
and published to the world as the word of God—not now, 
but after a while, when he should have been better pre- 
pared for his divine mission. 


Moroni’s 
message. 


The voice of the angel ceased, the light gathered 
round his person, and presently he ascended out of the 
room, leaving it dark as before he came. Suddenly, as 


THE BOOK WITH GOLDEN LEAVES 69 


Joseph lay there overwhelmed at the strangeness of what 
he had seen and heard, the angel reappeared, went over 
again the details of his message without the least varia- 
tion, added that great judgments were about to come 
upon the earth, and then disappeared as before in a pillar 
of light. Once more Joseph mused in the darkness over 
the experiences. of the night, when for the third time 
Moroni entered the room, repeated exactly the things he 
had twice related, warned the boy that he would be 
tempted of the devil to get rich from the gold plates, and 
again ascended in light. By the time this last vision 
ended, day was breaking. The visitations had evidently 
occupied the entire night. 


In a little while Joseph rose as usual and went with 
his father to the field. But he was too much exhausted 
to work. The elder Joseph, observing his 
son’s condition, advised him to return to the 
house to rest. The young man started to do 
so, but in “climbing the fence bounding the field, he fell 
to the ground unconscious. On recovering, the first 
thing of which he was aware was a voice above him, 
calling his name. Looking up, he recognized the angel 
of the previous night. Moroni, for the fourth time, re- 
hearsed his message, ending with a request that Joseph 
go and tell his father all he had heard and seen. When 
the boy had done so, ‘his father said, “It is of God; do 
exactly as the angel has commanded you.” 


The next 
day. 


Not far from Manchester is a hill of considerable size, 
compared with other hills in that region. By the Latter- 
day Saints it has come to be called by the 
same name by which it was known among 
the ancients—Cumorah—and by the non- 


Joseph views 
the Book. 


70 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


“Mormons” in Western New York State ‘““Mormon Hill.” 
To this historic treasure-house Joseph trudged with very 
solemn footsteps. As he went along the road, he thought 
most of all of the strange book buried there, on which 
his eyes would presently look. That volume was at once 
a treasure of gold and a relic of a lost civilization, and 
as such would yield, if sold, a great fortune. He and his 
family, who were now poor enough, might all of a sud- 
den be immensely rich, and, like other wealthy folk, might 
not only have everything they wanted, but cut a great 
figure in the world. 


That was clearly the voice of the devil. For had not 
the angel told him the plates, although of high value in 
and of themselves, were sacred and must not be even 
thought of in any other light? And had not the angel 
said, in so many words, that he would be destroyed if 
he tried to use them for the purpose of getting rich in-. 
stead of for the salvation of man and the glory. of God? 
Still, these two thoughts kept coming up in his mind, now 
this one and now that, till at last he arrived at the foot 
of the hill. 


-He knew exactly where the book lay, for he had seen 
the precise spot in vision while the angel was speaking 
the night before about the volume. So ascending the 
hill on the west slope till he nearly reached the top, he 
discovered the rounded surface of a large stone with the 
edges embedded in the earth. Removing this stone by the 
aid of a lever, he feasted his eyes in amazement on the 
wonderful treasure. For there was the golden book of 
the ancients resting on two upright stones in a stone box 
carefully cemented together to prevent moisture from 
entering... With the sacred volume.were a breastplate big 


THE BOOK WITH GOLDEN LEAVES 71 


enough for a giant, a great sword, and a large pair of 
“spectacles” to be used in the translation of the book, 
when he should receive it. , 

Indeed, the sight so took the young man’s breath that 
he forgot for the moment all that the angel had told him 
about the sacredness of the volume, forgot that he was 
not even to touch it till the proper time had come. When 
he reached out his hands to take it, he received a 
shock, as if by electricity. He fell back in surprise and 
disappointment. He tried again, with the same result; 
only this time the shock was greater. <A third attempt 
was equally unsuccessful. 

“Why can’t I get this book?” he exclaimed. 

“Because you have not kept the commandments of the 
Lord!” said a voice, which he recognized as that of the 
angel Moroni, who stood above him. 


Joseph was informed that he was not to receive the 
plates till four years had passed, but that every year till 
then, he must visit the hill, view the Book, and be further 
instructed by their heavenly keeper. 

Four long years of eager waiting! These were spent 
partly in New York State on a farm and partly in an 

nad old Spanish silver mine in Pennsylvania, | 
phe next from’ which a friend of the family, Josiah 
our years. : fe a 
Stowel, hoped. to get.rich. While in Har- 
mony, in the latter State, Joseph and Emma Hale were 
married in January, 1827. Every year, as the angel had 
directed, Joseph went to the hill Cumorah, and received: 
from Moroni. instructions concerning his future work. 

In four years. the angel had visited the young prophet 
nine times at least. Joseph must therefore have become 
very familiar with the life of the Nephites and the- 


72 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Lamanites. His mother tells us that, during these years, 
the young man would occasionally give the family “the 
most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would 
describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their 
dress, mode of traveling, and animals upon which they 
rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; 
their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship.” 
And he did this with as much ease, she tells us, as if 
he had actually lived among them all his life. 

A little after midnight of September 21, 1827, Joseph 


and his wife passed through the room in which Mrs. 
pees Smith, Joseph’s mother, was sitting up 
obtains the alone, both dressed as for a journey. Ina 
Plates. one-horse buggy that belonged to Mr. 
Knight they went to the hill to obtain the plates. In the 
dark hours of the night the young man ascended the 
slope, opened the box, and took out the Book, which had 
occupied his thoughts for so many years. There was now 
no need to fear that he would try to dispose of it to 
enrich himself, for all such notions had been driven from 
his mind. Nevertheless, the angel repeated his warning 
that evil men would endeavor to get it away from him. 
But he was promised that if he “looked well to his ways,” 
he should have power to retain it until it was translated. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What discoveries have recently been made in “King Tut’s” 
tomb in Egypt? How valuable are these relics? Why are they 
of great value? 

2. How valuable were the Book of Mormon plates as com- 
pared with the Egyptian findings referred to? 

3. What two attitudes did Joseph Smith take towards these 
plates, in’ the beginning? Which one of them displaced the 
other entirely? Tell what results might naturally be expected 
from each attitude followed out to the end. 


CHARTERS x 
THROUGH URIM AND THUMMIM 


You remember how the angel warned Joseph that he 
must be on his guard lest evil-minded men in his neigh- 
borhood should steal the Record. Well, this is exactly 
what they tried to do. 

That night when the Prophet obtained the golden book 
from the hill, instead of taking it home with him, he left 
Difficulties it in a secure place in the woods. An old 
in keeping birch tree had fallen to the ground. Pulling 
the Plates. the bark aside where there was a hole big 
enough to hold the plates, he put them in and then let 
the bark slip back into its place. After that he stirred 
the dry leaves and sticks about so as to cover up all traces 
of his work. Here the book rested till a chest could be 
made for it. When this was ready, he took the treasure 
home, put it into this chest, and kept it under lock and 
key. 

But his every movement was closely watched by certain 
men, who wanted to get the book. While he was in the 
act of carrying it home from the woods, he was assailed 
three times by three different men. Being himself a 
large man, he knocked them down, each in turn, escaping 
with no other hurt than a dislocated thumb, which his 
father put back into place. 

Once the family heard of a plot to search the house 
for the “gold bible.” It was hurriedly taken out of the 
chest and put under-the bricks of the hearth. No sooner 
had this been done and all traces of the change removed, 


74 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


than here came a gang of men to ransack the place for 
it. They were soon frightened off, however, by the 
Smiths and their friends, who made believe that they 
were numerous. 


On another occasion Emma Smith rode horseback to 
a neighbor’s, where her husband was digging a well, to 
inform him that the Record was in danger again. This 
time it was taken up from under the hearth, put once 
more into the chest, and the chest placed beneath the floor 
of an old carpenter shop across the road. Not long after- 
wards some men, guided by a young woman with a “peep- 
stone,” ransacked the place, but went away ace and 
disappointed at not finding the book. 


These are only two instances out of many that hap- 
pened during the time Joseph had the plates in the town 
qosenh of Palmyra. What with his daily work 
goes to and his constant fear of losing the Record, 
Pennsylvania. jt looked very much as if the book wouid 
never be translated. So he decided to move to Penn- 
sylvania. Borrowing fifty dollars of a neighbor, Martin 
Harris, and loading his household goods into his broth- 
er-in-law’s wagon, he betook himself to Harmony, his 
wife’s. former. home, the Record having been hidden in a 
keg of beans ‘for safe keeping. This. removal occurred 
more. than two months after he had et taken ae plates 
from the hill Cumorah.. | 


On receiving the ancient volume from the hands of the 
sole in September, 1827, Joseph did not proceed | imme- 
diately to translate it. This was owing, as 

Translation we said a moment aga, to his lack of means 
:; and to his anxiety over. the safety of the 
gold plates. _..But when he- reached Harmony, he copied 


THROUGH URIM AND THUMMIM 75 
some of the characters he found on them and. translated 
these into English. Later Mr. Harris, who visited him 
in February, 1828, took the papers on which these were 
written to a learned professor in New York City. It 
seems that it was Martin’s intention, if the professor’s 
opinion was favorable, to return to Joseph at Harmony 
and be his scribe. Presently Harris rejoined the Prophet, 
satisfied, apparently, with what the professor had told 
him. In the next two months they translated one hun- 
dred sixteen pages, legal size, which the secretary begged 
Joseph to let him show to certain of his friends at home. 
The manuscript, through Martin’s carelessness, was lost, 
and Joseph never saw it again. When the translation 
was taken up again, the missing part was not re-translated, 
but another part of the Record, which covered about the 
same period of Nephite history. 

Several months passed—months of regret and sorrow 
for all concerned, especially for the Prophet. For he 
was punished by being deprived of the Record. But 
later he was forgiven, the plates restored to him, and the 
translation was resumed. . This time, however, it was not 
Martin Harris that was his scribe, but a young school 
teacher named Oliver Cowdery. Oliver Cowdery caine 
to know of Joseph’s revelations through the Smith fam- 
ily, with whom he had lived while he was teaching in’ 
Palmyra. What he’ had heard: impressed him, for we are: 
told that he made the matter a subject of prayer. Hav-- 
ing been satisfied of the truth of Joseph’s claims, he 
visited the Prophet in April; 1829. 

From this time on till about the close of the year the 
work of ‘translation continued with but few interruptions. 


76 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


When some opposition developed in Har- 
mony the Prophet and his scribe, with 
Emma, took up their residence at the home 
of the Whitmers, in Fayette, New York. David, one of 
the Whitmers and a friend of Cowdery, proved a real 
help to the young workers, for he not only moved them 
to his father’s home but prior to that carried supplies of 
food to them while they were at Harmony. His inter- 
est had been awakened by Oliver Cowdery, who wrote 
to him such things as grew out of his relations to the 
young prophet. Then, too, friends and relatives visited 
Joseph, each anxious to know what the Lord would have 
him do in the New Dispensation—which gave occasion 
for several revelations in early church history. During 
the progress of this literary work, moreover, questions 
would arise in their minds as they translated. In this 
way came other revelations and visions. Finally, how- 
ever, the translation was completed and the manuscript 
ready for the press. 


Progress of 
the work. 


The translation of the Nephite Record was accom- 
plished, Joseph Smith tells us, “by the power of God.” 
And indeed this was necessary, if it was 
How the 
translation to: be done at all. For the language of the 
was done. original was what the Record itself calls 
“reformed Egyptian,’ of which neither the Prophet nor 
any. other living man knew anything. On the yellow 
metallic plates, which were eight inches in length, six. 
inches in width, and about the thickness of ordinary tin, 
were fine engravings. To translate this work Joseph 
used an instrument called the “urim and thummim,” two 
‘transparent stones set in a silver bow, which he found 
with the plates. It was also employed by him in receiv- 
ing revelations. ry 


THROUGH URIM AND THUMMIM 77 


Printing the book was a great undertaking for the 
young Prophet, who had never done anything like this 
before. A printer, Egbert B. Grandin, was 
employed for this purpose. He was to re- 
ceive three thousand dollars for an edition 
of five thousand copies. As a precaution against losing 
the original manuscript, Oliver Cowdery made a copy ot 
it for the use of the printer, and it was given to him only 
in what is often called “takes.’’ Once during the 
printing of the book a man by the name of Cole made 
an attempt to publish parts of the manuscript in such 
garbled language as would make it ridiculous, and was 
made to desist only by a threat to have him prosecuted 
under the copyright law. As the printing neared the end 
some people in Palmyra formed a silly agreement not to 
buy the book when it appeared. This made the printer 
afraid that he would not get his pay, till Martin Harris, 
who was a well-to-do farmer in the town, gave guarantees 
that the money would be ready whether the book was 
sold or not. At last it was published under the title “The 
Book of Mormon.” 

Two lessons Joseph had learned during these years. 
One was that when God commands, man must obey. The 

other was that when the Lord gives a com- 
Two lessons. mand He will provide a way by which it 

can be obeyed, no matter how hard it may 
seem. And these facts apply to all men as well as to the 
Prophet. 


The Book 
published. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why was it necessary for the Nephite Record to be trans- 
lated by “the power of God?” 

2. In what way was Joseph Smith equipped for the work of 
translating the Record? 


CHAPTERSSAL 
THE RED MAN’S BIBLE 


What is the Book of Mormon about? There are few 
books that have made such a stir in the world as the 
Nephite Record. Why should it have been revealed at 
this particular time? For that matter, why was it neces- 
sary at all in our age? And what purpose had the Lord 
in bringing it forth for the modern world? Let us look 
into this matter for a moment. 

About four thousand years ago, if you can imagine 
how long that is, there lived in Babylonia two men, Jared 

and his brother. They were great men in 
Contents of : : 
the Book the sight of God, for they received many 
of Mormon. yisions and revelations of His power, espe- 
cially Jared’s brother. On the occasion of the confusion 
of tongues at Babel, the capital of the empire, these men 
were directed by the Lord to go with their families and 
some of their friends across the “great waters” to the 
land now called America. Of course this was ages be- © 
fore the time of Columbus and his voyages. They did 
so and landed safely here. 

Settling chiefly in Central and North America, they 
became a large and powerful nation, numbering many mil- 

lions. They had a written language, they 
The | farmed the land and built houses, and they 
Jaredites. ; 

practiced a degree of manufacture. But 
as they spread over the country they grew in wickedness. 
‘After they had been here for many centuries, civil war 
broke out among them. It was waged with a hatred and 
bloodthirstiness the like of which we have no record 
among any other people. Even women and children 





ity of the Book of Mormon 


ivin 


The Three Witnesses to the D 





THE RED MAN’S BIBLE. 81 


were arrayed in battle with the men. In the end they 
destroyed themselves as a nation. 

While the Jaredites, as this nation was called, were 
fighting their last battles, the Lord led another colony to 
the land of America, this time to the southern continent. 

At that time there was living in Jerusalem, in Pal- 
estine, a man by the name of Lehi. He had a family, 

which consisted of his wife and four sons— 
The Lehites, Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi. Like 

Jared and his brother, Lehi was favored of 
the Lord, as was his youngest son. And like them, he 
too was directed by the Lord to take his family and a 
few others to America. This small colony, probably 
landed on the southern American shores. 

Here they grew into a divided nation—Nephites, who 
followed the youngest son of Lehi, and Lamanites, who 
followed the oldest. 

The Lamanites lived a wild, care-free life, true an- 
cestors of the roaming red men of this country. They 

had no written language or settled life, built 
The |. no temples or costly edifices, but hunted 
Lamanites. 

game and quarreled among themselves. 
Their chief delight was to stick the thorn in the sides of 
their brethren, the Nephites, whenever they could. At 
times we find them amenable to the teachings of their 
betters, who were always eager to convert them, but gen- 
erally they were as we have just described them. In 
time they were “cursed” with a “dark skin.” 

The Nephites, on the other hand, pretty generally chose 
the ways of peace and orderliness. They had a copy of 

what we now call the Bible down to the time 
The when Lehi left Jerusalem, which helped to 


Nephites. : : 
rants preserve their language and faith. They 
6 


82 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


\ 

erected temples and churches, they cultivated the arts of 
peace and religion, they farmed, they tamed animals, they 
mined and smelted ores, they coined money, and they 
reached what was for those days a high degree of civil- 
ization. Also they had prophets and religious leaders. 
After Christ’s resurrection in Palestine, He visited the 
people here, whom he found less hardened than the Jews. 
He taught them the same gospel that he did his disciples 
on the eastern hemisphere. Lamanites and Nephites alike 
received the gospel, and lived for two hundred years in 
the utmost harmony and righteousness. 


Then came strife and disunion. And the old division 
re-appeared, and the old names were revived. For those 
who accepted Christ became Nephites, and those who 
rejected Him became Lamanites. And the old color 
lines came back to mark the distinction. Presently war 
between them broke out, which ended in the extinction of 
the Nephites as a nation. After that we have the red 
man of to-day. 


Such is the strange story of this strange volume, the 
Book of Mormon. But why was it given to the modern 
world through the Prophet Joseph Smith? 

As for the Prophet’s connection with the work, we 
can easily understand now why he should be given the 
Translation task of translating it. Joseph was a mere 
Piennee Ria boy when he received the first vision, hav- 
his work. ing had little experience of life. This on 
the one hand. On the other hand, there lay the hidden 
record of ancient America, which was to be translated 
into English and which contained the gospel in the great- 
est simplicity and clearness. Now, what could better 


train the young prophet for his great work than to sit, 


THE RED MAN’S BIBLE. 83 


time after time, at the feet of the angel-keeper of the 
Record and to give his mind, day after dav, to a study 
of a detailed account of the dealings of the Lord with a 
people such as we find in the Book of Mormon? 

But there are two other purposes. 

One is to teach the gospel to the American Indians, 
in fulfilment of a divine promise to their forefathers. 
The Book is Over and over again the Lord, in answer to 
to teach the the prayers of the Nephites, promised that 
Indians. he would bring “the Lamanites to a knowl- 
edge of their fathers,’ that he would cause them “to 
know the promises of the Lord,” and that he would give 
them an opportunity to “believe the gospel and rely on 
the merits of Jesus Christ, be glorified through faith in 
His name, and through repentance be saved.” And this 
promise was partly fulfilled in 1 the coming forth of the 
Book of Mormon. 

The other purpose of the book is to make plain the 
teachings of the New Testament and to reinforce them. 
TO reac: Having been handed down through so many 
plainness of generations, and been, in some instances, 
the gospel. deliberately “wrested” to suit different 
creeds, the Bible is often hard to understand. This is 
evident from the fact that there are so many varying 
Christian sects, each claiming to follow the doctrines con- 
tained there. Now, there is no misunderstanding the 
Nephite Record in point of doctrine. Take, for instance, 
baptism. What chance would there be for misunder- 
standing if the New Testament declared as does the Book 
of Mormon, that he who baptizes shall “go down and 
stand in the water,’ say certain words, and _ then 
“immerse” the convert “in the water” and bring the bap- 
tized “forth again out of the water?” 


84 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Although the Prophet had had the original Nephite 
Record in his possession for more than two years, no 
Witmeeracte other living person had seen it. There ap- 
the truth of peared to be no doubt in some others’ minds 
the Book. = that Joseph had the ancient book, for his 
wife as she dusted the furniture had felt its outlines on 
the table under the cover, and other members of the 
Smith family had doubtless lifted the heavy chest in 
which it was locked, and those who wrote for the Prophet 
felt sure that behind the curtain from which came Joseph’s 
voice in dictation there lay before him the golden volume. 
But none of these had looked upon it. Toward the end, 
however, Mrs. Whitmer, as a reward for her patience and 
hard work under her increased family duties while the 
book was being: translated at her home, had been shown 
the plates by their heavenly keeper. But thus far Joseph 
was the only witness that could be held out to the world. 


Now, however, that the translation was finished, the 
time had come for additional witnesses to the divinity of 
the record, in fulfilment of a promise in the book itself. 
As soon as this promise was known, David Whitmer, 
Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris asked to be the 
special witnesses. And their wish was granted. 


When the translation was completed, there was a kind 

of celebration of the event at the Whitmer’s in Fayette. 

Besides the Whitmer family, the Prophet 

The three and Oliver Cowdery, Joseph’s parents and 
witnesses, . . 

Martin Harris were present on the occa- 
sion. One morning after the customary devotions of 
singing and reading the Bible and prayer, and after a 
warning by Joseph to Martin that he must “humble him- 
self before God and have forgiveness,” the Prophet, with 


© THECRED MAN’S BIBLE 85 


Oliver, David, and Martin, retired to a small grove not 
far away to receive the testimony. 

Arrived there, they all knelt down and prayed, each in 
turn. Twice they did this, but no vision came. Harris 
rose to his feet, suggesting that, since it was. probably his 
fault, he go apart and pray by himself. This he did. 
Thereupon Moroni appeared with the plates. He turned 
over the leaves of the Book and showed the men the 
engravings thereon. At the same time a voice from above 
declared that the book had been revealed by the power 
of God, that the translation was correct, and that they 
must bear witness of what they now saw to the whole 
world. Joseph now sought and found Martin, and the 
vision was repeated to the two. 

The Prophet’s relief on account of the witnesses is 
shown in what he said to his father and mother when 
he returned to the house. “I feel,” he said, “as if I were 
relieved of a burden which was almost too heavy for me 
to bear.* 

The testimony of these three witnesses you may read 
on a fly.eaf in the Book of Mormon. All through their 
lives they maintained the truth of this vision, notwith- 
standing many efforts were made to have them deny it 
or to contradict themselves, and notwithstanding all three 
left the Church, and one of them, David Whitmer, never 
returned. 

Shortly after this, the Prophet showed the ancient 
Record to eight others, who assert that they “hefted” the 

| plates and examined the writing on them, 
so as to convince them that they were what 
} was claimed, genuine records of a dead peo- 
‘ple. The names of these men, together with their testi- 
mony, you may also find with the testimony of the three 


The eight 
witnesses. 


86 OUR CHURCH AND’ PEOPLE 


witnesses. These men, too, clung to their testimony, al- 
though some of them left the Church. 

Of both sets of witnesses this may be said: No one 
can properly say that these eleven men did not see the 
Record. You may be able to show that some one did 
something, or saw something, or heard something, but 
you cannot in the very nature of things prove that some 
one did not see or hear or feel what they assert they did. 
You can only believe or doubt that he did. And it is 
this way with the testimony of the eleven witnesses to 
the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. 

The Book of Mormon is a very remarkable volume. It 
is one of the best books to read in existence. Every page 
of it is uplifting in its teachings. Altogether it forms 
one of the strongest evidences of the Prophet’s divine 
calling. 

Into fifteen languages, besides English, has tue Ne- 
phite Record been translated. It was translated into 
Danish in 1852, into Welsh in the following year, into 
German and French and Italian in the same year as the 
Welsh, into Hawaiian in 1855, into the Deseret Alphabet 
in 1869, into Swedish in 1878, into Spanish in 1886, into 
Maori in 1889, into Dutch in 1890, into Samoan in 1903, 
into Tahitian in the year following, into Turkish in 1906, 
and into Japanese three years later. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is it that leads to the downfall of a person in life? 
a4 Po you think these apply equally to the downfall of nations ? 

ow! 

3. Just why were the Nephites more admirable than the 
Lamanites ? 

4. What is the difference between the testimony of the three 
witnesses to the Book of Mormon and that of the eight? Why 
should there be two sets of witnesses? 


Cel Pal eae LE 
“OUT OF THE WILDERNESS” 


The Church of Christ is a divine organization. No 
man can organize it from his own authority. He must 
have direction from the Lord to do so; 


Divine cota 

authority otherwise it would be a church of some man, 
necessary to : 

awenoe not the Church Ora Christs bit where was 
church. this authority to come from? Certainly not 


from the Roman or the Greek Catholic church, nor yet 
from any of the Protestant sects, for the Lord had 
specifically told Joseph Smith that all these were with- 
out the true priesthood. If then the Prophet was to have 
authority to set up the Church of Christ again on the 
earth, it is clear that he must receive it anew from 
Heaven. 

Now, while Joseph and Oliver were translating the 
Nephite Record in Harmony, they came upon a passage 

: that spoke of baptism. Wishing to under- 

Aaronic Meat phe eee 
Priesthood Stand it in its application to themselves, 
restored. they prayed about it. In answer to their 
supplications on the subject the ancient forerunner of 
Christ, John the Baptist, appeared to them and conferred 
upon them the Aaronic priesthood, at the same time in- 
structing them to baptize each other and afterward to 
ordain each other to this priesthood. And this they did. 
Later, acting under this authority, they baptized a few 
others. 

Not long after this the ancient apostles of Jesus—Peter, 
James, and John—appeared to them in vision, laid their 


8&8 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Higher hands upon the heads of the young men, and 
priesthood ordained them to the higher, or Melchizedek, 
restored. priesthood. Thus the Prophet with his com- 
panion came in possession of all the priesthood enjoyed 
by the original apostles of the Christian church. 


As a matter of fact, the trouble with the reformers in 
Europe and America had been that they professed to have 
received their authority from the churches which they 
discarded. Luther, for example, felt no inconsistency in 
the fact that whatever priesthood he held he had received 
from the Catholic church, Wesley from the Church of 
England, and Booth of the Salvation Army from the 
Methodists. But Joseph Smith, received his authority, 
not from any of the churches of his day, but from its 
original source. 


The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is 
neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, in the usual 
“Mormon” meaning of these words. It is not Catholic 
Spee nae for the reason that it does not, like the 
Protestant. Church of Rome, claim to have derived. its 
authority from the time of Christ through a long line of 
priests. It is not old enough for that. And it is not 
Protestant, because its founder, Joseph Smith, did not 
protest against any doctrine or practice or form of a 
church to which he belonged and then set up one of his 
own. The Prophet was never a member of any other 
church than the one he established. “Mormonism” thus 
stands apart from every other religious order of its time. 
Joseph Smith declared, as we have seen, that he received 
his authority to institute a church direct from heaven, 
through the ministration of heavenly beings sent to him 
for this purpose. 


OUT “OF “THES WILDERNESS 89 


As a matter of fact, the very name of the organiza- 
tion he founded shows its independent character. 


As you know, some of the Christian churches of the 
present time are named for the persons who established 
them, as is the case with the Lutheran 
church. Others derive their names from 
some peculiarity of doctrine or practice, as 
for instance, the Baptist church. Others again take their 
names from the form of their church government, after 
the fashion of the Episcopalians (meaning “bishops’’ ) 
and the Presbyterians (meaning “elders”). And _ still 
others, like the Catholics and the Methodists, bear names 
that grow out of something connected with their organ- 
ization or worship. 


Name of the 
church. 


Now, if the founder of “Mormonism” had followed 
this practice, we should have had the “Joseph Smith 
church” or the “Apostolic church,” or some other such 
name. But he did not. Instead he let the Lord name it, 
and by revelation it was called after its divine Founder, 
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” The 
terms “Mormon” and “Mormonism” are not the true 
designation of the people and their religion, but merely 
nicknames, and for this reason are usually written in 
quotation marks in our literature. 


There is a special significance claimed for this name. 

It is, on the one hand, the Church of Christ, because He 

founded it. It is not the Church of Mor- 

Meaning of mon, one of the characters in the Nephite 
the name. ; 

Record, nor of Joseph Smith, through whom 
it was established. And then, on the other hand, it is 
the Church of the Latter-day Saints, because they are its 
members; it is their Church, it consists of them. Of 


90 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


course, the word “Saints” does not mean that the mem- 
bers of the Church look upon themselves as without sin. 
It signifies that they are consecrated to the service of 
the Master, and that they are striving for perfection of 
character. 
On Tuesday, April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith and a few 
others who had received his calling with favor met at 
the home of Father Peter Whitmer, in 
seas A Fayette, Seneca county, New York, and 
proceeded to organize the Church accord- 
ing to instructions received by the Prophet from the Lord. 
The meeting was opened by prayer, after which Joseph 
asked those present if they were willing to accept him 
and Oliver Cowdery “as their teachers in the things of 
the kingdom of God” and whether they were willing that 
the Church should be organized according to the com- 
mandment to do so. They answered in the affirmative. 
Joseph then ordained Oliver an elder and Oliver ordained 
Joseph to the same office. The sacrament was admin- 
istered, and each of those who had been baptized was 
confirmed by the laying on of hands for the reception 
of the Holy Ghost. 
The Spirit was manifest at the meeting in a remark- 
able manner, all rejoiced that the Church of Christ was 
again on the earth, and some of those pres- 
First ent exercised the gift of prophecy. Only 
members. : : : 
six persons constituted the membership of 
the new organization, although ethers had been baptized. 
Their names are: Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum 
Smith, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Samuel H. Smith, and David 
Whitmer. 
Before the meeting adjourned the Prophet received a 
revelation. In it the Church was instructed to keep a 


OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 91 


record, in which Joseph was to be called ‘‘a seer, a trans- 
lator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of 
the Church through the will of the Father and the grace 
of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The people were admonished 
to “give heed unto all his words and commandments 
which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walk- 
ing in all holiness before me; for his word ye shall receive 
as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.” 
And they were promised that if they did this the “gates 
of hell’ should not prevail against them, and the Lord, 
through his prophet, would “move the cause of Zion in 
mighty power for good.” In the same revelation Oliver 
Cowdery was designated the first preacher of the Church, 
not only to the Saints, but also to the world, Jew and 
Gentile. | 

Another meeting was held at the Whitmer home on 
the following Sunday. On this occasion Oliver Cowdery 
preached the first public discourse under the auspices of 
the new organization. On the same day six persons were 
added to the Church. From this time on baptisms were 
a common occurrence, for during the time Joseph was 
translating the Nephite Record, he and others talked to 
their friends about the new movement, thus bringing 
about their conversion. 

For the new Church there were both troubles and 
blessings ahead during the rest of this first year. 

Some of the signs that were to follow believers were 
made manifest very early. We have just seen that at the 

first meeting held the spirit of revelation 
The first and prophecy was in evidence. It was not 
miracle. ; : 
long afterwards that “the first miracle’ 

occurred, the casting out of evil spirits. This was at 
the home of Joseph Knight, in Colesviile, Broome county. 


92 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


[lis son Newel, while attempting to pray alone one day, 
was seized by an unknown power, which held his will 
captive. Joseph the Prophet was called in. He rebuked 
the evil power, and Newel was healed. This was done, 
says the Prophet, “not by the power of man, but by the 
power of God, to whom be glory forever.” 

It was about the same time that water was substituted 
for wine in the sacrament. It happened at Harmony, 


The where Joseph had gone to attend to some 
Sa eacy confirmations. While the Prophet was on 
wine. his way to procure wine for the sacrament, 


‘he was met by a heavenly messenger,” who told him 
that “it mattereth not what ye shall eat, or what ye 
shall drink, when ye partake of the sacrament, if so be 
that ye shall do it with an eye single to the glory” of 
God. 

The miracle of which we have spoken was in reality 
the cause of some opposition which the Prophet received 

this year. At Colesville some baptisms had 
Opposition. been performed after a dam in a stream 

near there had been torn out by persons who 
were unfriendly to the Saints. This made these persons 
angry. They gathered around the Knight home to the 
number of fifty, making threats of violence. The miracle 
at the Knights had only added fuel to the flame. Joseph 
Smith was arrested, tried and acquitted, and arrested 
again, only to be found “not guilty,’ much to the dis- 
satisfaction of his enemies. 

Meantime the Church kept on growing in numbers. 
By the end of the year 1830, there must have been up- 
wards of two hundred persons, men and women, who 
had embraced “Mormonism.” 

It was in this way that Joseph Smith obtained his di- 


OUT OF THE WILDERNESS 93 


vine authority to organize the Church of Christ in this 
dispensation. He went direct to the source of all divine 
authority for his power to do his work here. 


‘QUESTIONS 


1. Why should this Church have been named as it was? What 
does it imply in the character of Joseph Smith that he so 
named it? 

2. Give the significance of this name. What effort may we 
expect on its members from this name rather than some other, 
say, the “Church of Joseph Smith” ? 


GIT AR Dink eeG LT 
SOME FOUNDATION STONES 


In nothing that the Prophet Joseph Smith did during 
these early days is divine guidance more clearly shown 
than.in the circumstances attending the organization of 
the Church. At a time when he was without experience 
in such matters the Prophet yet introduced some princi- 
ples that lie at the very foundation of Church govern- 
ment. And so far as we can see, he could not have got 
them from any of the Christian sects of the day. Of 
course, he did not receive these all at once, but each as 
the occasion required in the progress of the Church. 


At the meeting where the Church was organized Joseph 
put the question to those present, “Are you willing that 
we shall proceed to organize the Church, ac- 
The Church cording to the commandment which has 
democratic. : . . 
been received?” Also he put this question: 
“Do you accept us [meaning himself and Oliver 
Cowdery] as your teachers in the things of the kingdom 
of God?” They had already been appointed the first and 
the second elder in this dispensation. The small gather- 
ing of men must have answered “Yes” to both of these 
questions, for the organization of the Church was effected. 
Thus in the very beginning the great idea of govern- 
ment by the voice of God and the voice of the people was 
adopted in this Church. It is a combination of a theo- 
cracy, the rule of Deity, and a democracy, the rule of the 
people. And this order has been the rule in the Church 
from that day to this. “No person,” says the Prophet 


SOME -FOUNDATION STONES 95 


in laying down the principle, “is to be ordained to any 
office in this Church, where there is a regularly organ- 
ized branch of the same, without the vote of that Church.” 
You have no doubt been at a conference when the pre- 
siding officer rose and said, “It has been proposed that 
we sustain So-and-so to such-and-such office,” naming a 
‘person and the position he was to occupy. That is “the 
voice of God” through the priesthood, who called him to 
that place. Then the congregation was asked to show 
their approval or disapproval “by the uplifted hand.” And 
that was the “‘voice of the people.” 


Another fundamental principle adopted by the Church 
at this time is that priesthood shall be held by all the 
: ... male members of the Church, instead of be- 
Wide distri- . ; 
bution of ing confined to a few men who have re- 
Priesthood. ceived special training for this purpose. 


In other churches, as you may know, priesthood is 
not supposed to be held by any one that cannot devote 
all his time to the ministry. In a congregation of, say, 
a thousand persons, all men if you want, only the preacher 
wou.d hold the priesthood. With the Latter-day Saints 
it is different. Any male member of the Church who has 
attained the age of twelve and is worthy may exercise the 
rights of the priesthood in some form. Thus in a con- 
gregation of “Mormons” the priesthood would be held 
by probably every man and boy there. 


There are two grand divisions in the 
Divisions of ~=(Church: The Melchizedek and the Aaronic, 
Priesthood. i 
the latter also called the Levitical. 


(1) The Melchizedek priesthood is divided into high 
priests and elders, but the term “elder” is often applied 
in a general sense to all who hold this priesthood. It 


96 - OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


holds the right of presidency and has power and author- 
ity over all the officers in the Church. 

The First Presidency are three high priests, who stand 
at the head of the affairs of the Church in all the world. 

The Twelve Apostles are high priests, who constitute 
a traveling council. They are special witnesses of the 
name of Christ in all the world, and they direct the af- 
fairs abroad under the direction of the First Presidency. 

The Seventies are not high priests but elders, whose 
calling it is to travel and to assist the Twelve in the 
promulgation of the gospel. 


(2) The Aaronic priesthood is also called the lesser, 
because it 1s an appendage thereto. Under this head 
come the priest, the teacher, and the deacon. These lat- 
ter officers are generally held by boys and young men. 

Equally interesting is the group of ideas usually called 
“the first principles and ordinances of the gospel,” not 

: only in the nature of them but in the order 
First | in which they come. In both respects, how- 
Principles. : . 

ever, they follow the pattern laid down in 
the New Testament. 


The first of these is faith. 


One cannot do anything without faith, even in mate- 
rial affairs. The farmer would not sow or plant unless 
j he believed his crop would mature. The 
Faith. ~’ merchant or banker would not give credit 

or lend money if he did not believe in the 
honesty and the ability to pay of the creditor. None of 
us would work for others unless we felt that we would 
get our wages.- We should hesitate to eat, not to put it 
too strongly, unless we believed that the food put before 
us contained no poison. Who would go on a trip with- 


SOME FOUNDATION STONES 97 


out confidence in the vehicle in which he was to travel 
or in the driver of the vehicle? 

It is the same in spiritual matters. It is necessary for 
us to have faith in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit, 
in the other world, m the principles and ordinances of 
the gospel, in our spiritual leaders. And for this very 
simple reason, that these ideas would have no value for 
us unless we first believed that they had value. In religion 
we are ever reaching out for better things. But we 
never could attain them unless we believed they existed 
and were within our reach. Faith, however, is more 
than the acceptance of the existence or the attainability of 
things. It is a principle of power. ‘Through faith men 
have “subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, ob- 
tained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched 
the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, waxed 
valiant in fight, and turned to flight alien armies.” 

The second principle is repentance. 

True repentance is to feel sorry for wrong doing and 

to determine to do wrong no more. There 
Repentance, are two aspects to repentance—overcoming 

sin and forgiving sin. These may be shown 
in a simple way. 

Two sisters, say, love each other very much. They 
are happy and contented in that love. But one of them, 
in a fit of anger, says something to wound the feelings of 
the other. Their relationship of love and happiness is 
broken for a time. Now they are both unhappy. Sup- 
pose, however, the one who committed the offense says, 
“Sister, I was wrong—forgive me!” and the other should 
respond in the same spirit. Instantly the former state of 
love, contentment, and happiness is restored. 

In religion it is much the same, only here the relation- 


1 


98 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


ship is between a human being and God. Joseph Smith 
at the time of the First Vision may be said to have been 
in God’s favor. He loved the Lord, and the Lord loved 
him in return, and Joseph was happy in that relation- 
ship. But after this great heaveniy manifestation the 
young man became “entangled again in the vanities of 
the world,” as we are told in one of the revelations to him. 
Accordingly, that relationship was changed, the harmony 
was broken, for the Lord was displeased. But later, when 
Joseph saw that he had “given way to temptation,” he 
“repented and humbled himself sincerely,” exclaiming, 
“Lord, I have sinned—forgive me!” God forgave him, 
the relationship of harmony was restored, and Moroni 
was sent “from the presence of God” to console and 
instruct him. 
The third point is the ordinance of baptism. 
Baptism is a sign, token, or symbol of our member- 
ship in the Church. Just as we cannot get along in the 
common affairs of life without faith, so we 
Baptism. find ourselves unable to manage without 
signs and symbols in any of our doings, no 
matter how simple they may be. Signs are essential from 
the very nature of things, as we have them. Since I can- 
not tell what is in your mind, you must inform me if I 
am to know at all. But the only way in which you can 
do this is by words or gestures. And these stand to me 
for your thought. Our clothes denote our station in life, 
whether we are boy scouts, policemen, soldiers, civilians, 
or what not. Before you can join a club, become a citi- 
zen of the United States, or testify before a judge you 
must express your thought or intention in some token 


SOME FOUNDATION STONES 99 


or symbol, like signing papers or holding up the hand 
and taking an oath. 

Now, baptism is the symbol or sign chosen for the 
Church. It is properly applied only to those who are 
capable of understanding its meaning. In baptism the 
whole body is immersed in water. The purpose is two- 
fold—to admit to membership in the Church and to 
cleanse from sin. And what an admirable symbol it is! 
Water stands everywhere for purity. It cleanses the body 
of physical dirt. When the entire body is baptized, instead 
of merely the forehead, its symbolism is better carried out. 
Then again, baptism typifies our burial in death and our 
new birth into life. Just as our body, when we die, is 
put into the earth, entirely out of sight, so, when it is 
placed in the water till it is all underneath, there is a 
kind of burial. And just as we come into this world in 
our first birth from the element of water and breathe 
another element, the air, so in baptism we rise from 
water, in which we have been completely submerged, into 
air, which we breathe anew after a momentary suspension. 
Appealing to the sense of sight and touch and hearing, it 
helps us to put away the old life of sinfulness and to put 
on our new life of struggle against sin and impurity. 
Baptism thus becomes the very gate to the Church of 
Christ. No matter how morally good or righteous we — 
may be, we stand outside the Church, until we are bap- 
tized by one having authority from the Lord. It is an 
act whereby we enter into a solemn covenant with the 
Lord to be his followers—to live, that is, in accordance 
with his laws and rules. 

Then there is confirmation. 

When one has exercised faith in God and the Church, 
has become aware of the fact that he has done wrong and 


100 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


decided not to do wrong any more, and has 
Confirmation. sought forgiveness of his sins and member- 
ship in the Church, he then is in a condition 
of spirit where he desires divine aid, so that he shail not 
fall again into his former state of sinfulness. This aid 
comes through the Holy Spirit, bestowed upon the con- 
vert by the laying on of hands by those having the proper 
authority. After receiving the Holy Spirit one is in a 
better position to live a clean wholesome life than before, 
especially if one listens to and cultivates “‘the still small 
voice” within him. 
And what about the order in which these four basic 
principles are given by this modern prophet? That is 
significant too. Faith must come first for 


Order of ‘ : 
these four the reason that without faith no one would 
principles. inspect his conduct to see whether it falls 


short of a standard; that is, he would not repent. As 
for repentance, no sooner do we see the need for chang- 
ing our lives than we ask the question, “How about our 
past?” And so we seek forgiveness. Therefore, baptism. 
But the moment we have this forgiveness we look about 
us for a means to help us from falling back into our old 
ways of living. This aid is found in the reception of 
the Holy Ghost through the laying on of hands by those 
who have the authority to do so. This order—faith, re- 
pentance, baptism, and confirmation—is seen to be deeply 
fundamental when we come to change their sequence. | 
For receiving the Holy Ghost implies that we have had 
our sins forgiven, forgiveness of sins again pre-supposes 
that we have had sins to forgive, and repentance, once 
more, means that we have already recognized a standard 
of life in which we believe. 

Nothing can show better the divine inspiration of the 


SOME FOUNDATION STONES 101 


prophet than this beautiful harmony of teachings, not 
only of one with another, but of all of them with the 
teachings of the New Testament. Nowhere else than 
from God could Joseph have received these teachings. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What ideas are named here as foundation stones? Why 
are they so called? Can you mention an idea taught by the 
Church that is not so fundamental? 

2. Why do you think the Lord has ordered that priesthood is 
to be held by all the men and boys in the Church, who are 
worthy, instead of by a few, who are trained for the ministry? 


CHAR TERAALY, 
WORKERS IN THE SILENCE 


One Sunday afternoon, not long ago, a young girl about 
fourteen years of age came home from the fast meeting 


A girl’s in her ward very much excited over what 
ee had taken place there. A member of the 
tongues. Church had spoken in an unknown lan- 


guage, and another had told the congregation what it 
meant, for no one else seemed to know. 

The young lady was full of questions, which she put 
to her father. Had these people first learned this lan- 
guage? If not, how could they speak it? No one, 
she said, was able to talk in French without having stud- 
ied it, for she was taking French in school and knew 
how hard it was to speak it as fluently as the man in the 
fast meeting did in that unknown tongue. Why did he 
speak in a foreign language instead of in English, which 
every one could understand? 


Her father explained that this was a miracle—one of 
the miracles of the Church. The Spirit of the Lord took 
possession of the man who spoke in the strange language, 
causing him to speak under its influence; and the same 
Spirit took possession of the other man, the one who in- 
terpreted it, giving him an understanding of it and 
enabling him to translate it into a language which the 
congregation could readily comprehend. 

He told her also of other instances where this gift of 
tongues, as we call it, has been exercised in this and other 
dispensations. He related an instance that 
happened years ago to William Budge and 
Karl G. Maeser. Elder Budge, a mission- 


Gift of 
tongues. 


WORKERS IN THE SILENCE 103 


ary to Germany, was unable to speak or understand Ger- 
man, while Brother Maeser, then an investigator, was un- 
able to speak or understand English. In order to con- 
verse, these two men had to employ an interpreter. But 
presently, to their astonishment, they could dispense with 
the services of the interpreter, because, although the one 
spoke in English and the other in German, they were able 
through the power of God in the gift of tongues to under- 
stand each other perfectly. 

He also related the incident in the Acts of the Apostles, 
which happened shortly after the death and resurrection 
of Christ, where the Apostle Peter on this occasion, al- 
though he preached in his native tongue, was understood 
by people who represented nineteen different dialects or 
vernaculars. And he related the incident of the late Presi- 
dent George ©. Cannon, who, while on a mission to the 
Hawatian Islands when a boy, had been able, through 
this same gift of tongues, to learn the language of the 
natives and to speak it fluently in a very short time. 

“The main purpose of the gift of tongues,” her father 
added, “is to preach the gospel in a foreign language. 
When it is exercised in meetings like the one you attended 
to-day, the purpose is to strengthen the faith of the 
Saints in the power of the Lord. It is a miracle of God’s 
power.” 

Brigham Young was the first to speak in tongues in the 
Church. At the first meeting of the Prophet Joseph and 
Brigham Young, the latter, at the close of the conversa- 
tion, was invited to lead in prayer. While he was pray- 
ing, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he spoke 
in some unknown tongue. This was in 1832. But neither 
the Prophet Joseph nor Brigham Young encouraged this’ 
gift, any more-than did the Apostle Paul. 


104 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


The Prophet Joseph says: 

“Be not so curious about tongues; do* not speak in 
tongues except there be an interpreter present; the ulti- 
mate design of tongues is to speak to foreigners, and 
if persons are very anxious to display their intelligence, 
let them speak to such in their own tongues. The gifts 
of God are all useful in their places, but when they are 
applied to that which God does not intend, they prove an 
injury, a snare, and a curse instead of a blessing.” 

“But, what is a miracle?” the young girl wanted to 
know. 

A miracle, he told her, is something that we see or hear, 
which is caused by something that we do not see or hear. 

Once there was an African runner who was employed 
to carry cocoanuts a distance of fifteen or twenty miles 

through the forest to a white camp. Get- 
wees i ting thirsty on the way, one time, he very 

naturally broke open one of the nuts and 
drank the milk. The man to whom they were being sent 
read the letter accompanying them, counted the nuts, and 
finding one of them to be missing, turned to the boy and 
roundly scolded him for his theft. The young African 
was puzzled to know how his master had got the in- 
formation, but concluded that the note was somehow to 
blame. So the next time he got thirsty on the way, he 
carefully put the letter under a huge stone where it 
could not see, walked a little way off, and then broke 
open the nut and drank the contents, feeling confident 
that his secret was safe. You can imagine his consterna- 
tion when his employer, on reading the letter and count- 
ing the cocoanuts, turned to him with an accusing finger. 

Now, to us with our knowledge of paper and pen and 
ink and the art of writing, this simple act is no mystery 


WORKERSPING THE SSILENCE 105 


at all, as it was to the poor ignorant darkskin. We know 
exactly how it came about that the African boy was 
found out in a theft committed in the great silence of 
the forest, where there was no eye to see him. But, just 
the same, we are often as much perplexed over questions 
that are as dark to us as writing was to the African 
youth, but are probably as simple of explanation to a 
higher intelligence than ours as that is to us. 

When an apple falls down from the tree instead of 
up into the air, it is obeying a law of the universe, just 
as water is when it flows down hill. Yet we can throw 
an apple into the air, and we can make water run uphill. 
But this, too, is in obedience to a law; only, in this case, 
one force overcomes another. So, too, when one breaks 
one’s leg and it takes three months to heal, the healing 
process is a wonderful thing, even if it is in accordance 
with laws we pretty well know. Still, when the leg 
heals suddenly under the administration of elders acting 
through the power of God, we are not warranted in say- 
ing that the healing takes place in violation of law. 

When you stop to think, everything in what we know 
as Nature is miraculous. What is it that makes the grass 
and the trees and animals to grow? What is it that makes 
the delicate colors in the butterfly and the rose? Really, 
we do not know much about the causes of these and a 
thousand other wonderful things in the natural world. 
All laws of the universe are natural, and all laws are 
supernatural. Many of these laws we know, but most 
of them we do not know at present. Wonder is said to be 
the child of ignorance, but this is not so; for the more 
one knows and thinks about Nature and her ways, the 
more one is inclined to wonder at the Power back of what 
we see. 


106 -QOUR -CHURCH AND. PEOPLE 


A miracle is not a violation of law. It occurs in accord- 
ance with law. But, although we see an effect called 
a miracle, we merely do not see the cause which pro- 
duced it or understand the law which underlies it. It Is 
our lack of knowledge of the spiritual forces at work in 
the universe that makes it a miracle. How non-plussed 
a person would be who lived in the early nineteenth 
century were he to come to life now and listen to a 
familiar voice over the telephone, or go for a drive in 
a carriage without horses, or ride over land and sea one 
of thirty-two passengers in a zeppelin, or sit at home and 
listen to a lecture or a concert two thousand miles away ! 
He would be in the midst of miracles. Yet to us they are 
commonplaces. When an electrician harnesses the force 
in a drop of water and runs it through an insulated copper 
wire till it ends in a bulb in our home ready to flood the 
room with light when we press a button, he is not doing 
so in violation of a law but in obedience to a law. So 
when the sick are healed, when men speak in new tongues, 
and when other miracles are performed by a power which 
we do not see, they are done through the operation of 
laws of which we are as yet ignorant. 

There have always been persons who demanded miracles 
as signs. “Give us a sign,” they cry, “that we may know 
Miracles you have the truth.”.. As if it were truth 
signs for . they are seeking! Such people demanded 
believers. signs and wonders of our Savior when he 
taught in Palestine. He told them plainly that this was 
an indication that their hearts were bad, that they had 
sinned. And there have not been wanting people of this 
class in our own day. The fact is that miracles are not 
for the unbeliever at all, but for him who believes. In- 
deed, they come as the result of faith. Experience in this 


WORKERS IN THE, SILENCE 107 


dispensation of the gospel has shown that, as a rule, 
those who can be converted only by a miracle have to 
have a miracle performed every once in a while to keep 
up their faith in the Church. The purpose of miracles is 
to comfort believers, to aid in the promulgation of truth, 
to strengthen the faith of those who already believe. 
Take, for example, the healing power. What a travesty 
on sacred things to think that physical: pain is cured, not 
because of compassion for suffering, but merely to satisfy 
a vulgar curiosity in an unbeliever! The simple truth 
is, that Christ usually admonished those on whom He per- 
formed miracles of healing not to make it known at all, 
and the same counsel has been repeated in this dispensa- 
tion in numerous revelations. It is a blessed thing. to 
have the power of God manifest through us and in our 
behalf—not that we may boast of it, but that we may in+ 
wardly praise the Lord for His mercies to us. . 
There has been no dispensation of the gospel to man 
in which there has been a greater or a more abundant 
Mi manifestation of the miraculous power than 
iracles ¢ . ‘ 
common in in this one. Almost every miracle known 
our Church. to the Saints of the New Testament or -the 
Book of Mormon has been experiericed by the Saints 
to-day. ; ae 
The first miracle in this age, as we have seen, was the 
casting out of evil spirits fromi Newel Knight. Also, as 
we have just seen, the gift of tongues has been received 
rather frequently by the Latter-day Saints. At Nauvoo, 
when the Saints first settled there and the place was a 
marshland, the healing power was made manifest to a re- 
markable degree. The Prophet Joseph went from house 
to house healing the sick in a manner that has caused the 
event to be handed down in “Mormon” history as “a day 


108 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


of power.” Once the late President Lorenzo Snow was 
drowned and was restored through a miracle. The 
gift of prophecy has been exercised to a marvelous degree. 
notably by Joseph Smith and Heber C. Kimball. For this 
power of seeing into the future, under the influence of 
the Spirit, is as much a miracle as any we could name. 
Most wonderful of all, however, is the miracle of chang- 
ing the human heart from one of sinfulness to one where 
there is a desire to love God and to keep His command- 
ments, of creating in men and women the spirit of ser- 
vice in the cause of truth; and in this respect what ‘‘Mor- 
monism” has done is akin to what the early Christians 
and the Saints of the Book of Mormon exhibited. 

There is always great need by us of the saving power 
of God in our lives. The Church exists to-day because 
its members believe in the power of the Lord as mani- 
fested in the gift of tongues, in the healing ordinance, 
in prophecy, and in revelation and vision. We must not 
forget this fact. Were it not for these ours would be like 
other churches, of whom the Lord told Joseph Smith, 
“they have a form of godliness, but deny the power 
thereof.” As long as we trust in the power of God we 
are on the path to salvation here and hereafter. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Mention as many different kinds of miracles as you know 
of in the Church. What would you think a miracle is? 

2. Are miracles a violation of law? Can you tell what a law’ 
is? Why is the statement incorrect, that “some laws are natural 
and others supernatural”? 


3. What would you infer from the statement made by Chris- 
tidans generally that miracles are not necessary now-a-days? 


CHAPTER XV 
HERALDS OF SALVATION 


Many of your friends, girls as well as boys, have gone 
on missions, or are now in the mission field. What are 
they there for? If you ask them how they 
like being on a mission, they will tell you, 
one and all, that it was the happiest time of 
their lives. Old men who have been on a mission will 
tell you that they cannot remember a happier period. 
Why? It is because they were trying to serve others, to 
tell others of the good that had come into their own 
lives. 

It is a strange thing in us all, when you come to think 
about it, that as soon as we receive a truth of any kind 
we rush to share it with others. This was true of the 
early Saints. No sooner had they joined the Church 
than they wished others to hear and receive the thing that 
had brought joy into their own hearts. One of the first 
missions, growing out of the Book of Mormon, was the 
mission to the Lamanites, or American Indians, in the 
West. 

This mission consisted of Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. 
Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jr., Ziba Peterson, and Frederick 
G. Williams, although the last named did 
not join the company till it was leaving 
Ohio. Their route lay westward through 
Buffalo, Sandusky, Kirtland, and St. Louis. Leaving 
New York in October, 1830, they reached Independence, 
Missouri, about February first. 

On their way west they visited a tribe of Catteraugus 
Indians near Buffalo, and another tribe, the Wyandots, 


Your friends 
on missions. 


* The first 
mission. 


110 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


near Sandusky, Ohio. At both places they were well re- 
ceived, remained two or three days to converse and 
preach, gave copies of the Book of Mormon to such as 
could read, and left with the good wishes of the natives. 
At Mentor, Ohio, they called upon Sidney Rigdon, a 
pastor of the church of the Disciples there, whom Elder 
Pratt had met before. They presented him 
Tr Ohio: with the Book of Mormon, which he prom- 
ised to read, and preached in-his chapel. 
Proceeding to Kirtland, not far away, they remained for 
some time doing missionary work. Before they left this 
last place they had organized a branch there numbering 
one hundred twenty persons. A little farther on they fell 
in with a man named Simeon Carter, to whom they related 
the story of ““Mormonism” and gave a copy of the Nephite 
history. Mr. Carter read the book, was converted, went 
to Kirtland and was baptized, and, returning home, 
brought into the Church about sixty persons. Meantime, 
the missionaries pursued their way westward. 
From Kirtland to Independence, Missouri, they made 
almost the entire distance on foot, through deep snow 
and rains, eating little but raw bacon and 
In Missouri. frozen bread. Arrived at Independence, 
three of them, including. Elders Cowdery 
and Pratt, crossed the border into Indian Territory, where 
they proclaimed their message and handed the sachem 
a copy of the Nephite Scriptures. The Indian agent, © 
however, refused to allow them to continue their work 
among the Lamanites. So.Elder Pratt was delegated to 
return to New York for instructions, while the others 
stayed in the frontier town. 
Settlements in Ohio and in Missouri followed closz 
on the heels of the Lamanite mission, 


HERALDS OF SALVATION. 11 


At Kirtland, as already stated, there was a branch of 
more than a hundred members, and fifty miles away was 
another of sixty. Besides, the soil in this neighborhood 
had been prepared for “Mormonism”’ by the preaching of 
such men as Alexander Campbell and Sidney Rigdon, 
who belonged to the church of the Disciples, or Camp- 
bellite church and who taught some of the principles of 
the “Mormon” Church. Then too, opposition threat- 
ened to grow in New York. What was more natural, 
therefore, than that the Saints should move to Ohio, 
where there would be more room with less trouble? Kirt- 
land at this time was a town of upwards of two thousand 
inhabitants and very pleasantly situated. Most of the 
new comers took up their residence here, but the Coles- 
ville branch, numbering sixty, went in a body to Thomp- 
son, eighteen miles distant. 


Interest in Missouri was due less in reality to the 
mission to the Lamanites than to another fact. Independ- 
ence, in that State, had been named in the 
Interest in revelations as the place where the City of 
* Missouri. ee : Aspe 
Zion, with a magnificent temple, was to be 
built, and it may have been thought that the time for these 
things to happen was ripe. The Indians, who were to 
become “a white and delightsome people,” were to take 
part in the building of the city and the temple. In this 
way were the two interests connected. 


Accordingly, in June, 1831, twenty-eight missionaries 
were appointed to go west, preaching the gospel by the 
way. They were to meet in Missouri, where, it was prom- 
ised, they should learn about “the land of your inherit- 
ance.” This group included the Prophet, Edward Part- 


112 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


ridge, who became the first bishop of the Church, and 
Sidney Rigdon, who had joined after reading the Book of 
Mormon. A little later the Colesville branch moved to 
Missouri, settling in Kaw township. Early in August of 
this year the land of Zion was dedicated by Sidney Rig- 
don. In view of what happened to the Saints in Missouri 
before long, it should be known that the group of “Mor- 
mons” gathered on that occasion promised, for them- 
selves and for those who were to follow, “to keep the 
law of God on this land.” 


The Church flourished in a way that is difficult to 
follow in detail. 

For one thing there took place some important changes 
in the Church itself. You may recollect that at first 
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery presided 
over the Church as elders. During this pe- 
riod there was organized the First Presi- 
dency, with Joseph Smith as president and Sidney Rigdon 
and Frederick G. Williams as counselors; the quorum of 
Twelve Apostles, the office of Presiding Patriarch, the 
presidency of the Seventy, and the High Council. A 
Presiding Bishop of the Church was also appointed at 
this time. These various officers proved necessary on 
account of the rapid growth of the organization. 

It is in the missionary service, however, that we ob- 
serve the greatest changes. The earnestness, enthusiasm, 
and activity of the men of those days knew no bounds. 
One would imagine that they did not have to make their 
living at all, that all they had to do was to talk to their 
neighbors about the new faith and to make missionary 
trips every now and then. But the contrary was the 
case. At all events, a great many converts were made, 


Changes in 
the Church. 


HERALCDSPOR SALVALION 113 


chiefly in the East, and as fast as these embraced the 
gospel, they proceeded to gather to Kirtland and Zion. 
In this way were brought into the fold such stalwart men 
as Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodrufi, 
Lorenzo Snow (all of whom became presidents of the 
Church), Heber C. Kimball, Orson Pratt, Willard Rich- 
ards, and many others whose names are only less familiar 
than these. In the short space of nine years the Church 
increased its membership to more than fifteen thousand 
in the United States alone. : 

During this period, too, foreign missions were opened 
—one in Canada and another in England. 

Parley P. Pratt, who was now an apostle, went to 
Upper Canada, in 1836. Before this, however, sermons 
had been preached by “Mormon”’ elders be- 
yond our northern borders—by Orson Pratt, 
Sidney Rigdon, and the Prophet Joseph. 
But no mission had been established or converts made 
till Parley P. Pratt went there on this occasion. At 
Toronto all the members, except one, of a society organ- 
ized to promote religious discussion were converted, one 
of whom was John Taylor. Great interest, not to say 
excitement, was manifested in this city over the advent 
of the new faith. A large number of persons joined the 
Church, who became staunch members of the society in 
Missouri. 

The mission to England, undertaken at this time, was 
a most remarkable one, fruitful of much good in many 

ways. In this case the missionaries were 
Sees Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Willard 
Richards, and Joseph Fielding, and they left 
Kirtland early in June, 1837. The city of Preston was 
the center of the missionary work, where, on the eve- 


co 


Es 


Mission to 
Canada. 


114 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


ning of their third Sunday in England, they organized 
a branch with a membership of twenty-five. From this 
town the missionaries went into surrounding villages, 
establishing branches wherever they went. The sick were 
healed through the ministration of the elders, the lame 
made to walk, consumptives cured in baptism, evil spirits 
expelled, and other gifts of the gospel enjoyed. In less 
than a year two thousand had been admitted into the 
Church, fifteen hundred through the labors of Elder 
Kimball alone. Leaving Elder Fielding in charge of the 
mission, the others embarked for home in May, 1838. 

This is distinctively a Church of missionaries. Every 
young man and every young woman should aspire to be- 
come a missionary, and should prepare for a mission by 
keeping himself and herself free from sin and by studying 
the gospel so as to know what to do and how to do it 
when they get there. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is meant by service? Why is it “more blessed to 
give than to receive’? Explain why it is that missionaries are 
so happy in their work. 

Explain the statement that it is necessary to give some 
little service every day in order to keep alive in us the desire to 
serve. 

3. What opportunities are there in our Church for service? 
Name some ways in which you can do service at home. How 
much money does the teacher of this class receive for teaching 
it? Why does he perform this service? 


CHAPEL RIVE 
“NOT OF THE WORLD” 


There is only one way to grow, and that is by effort. 

The athlete, whether he be a wrestler, a runner, or a - 
basket-ball player, must have training if he is to develop 
muscle and skill. But his trainer compels 
him to practice, to work, to overcome all 
opposition that stands in the way. So the 
athlete may sometimes look upon his trainer as his enemy, 
although he knows in his heart all the time that he is 
his best friend. 

It is much the same in spiritual things. “Life is not 
for ease, softness of comfort, lily-bed peace and dainty 
pleasure only, for fortunate grasp and secure possession 
—life is for the forging and tempering, by every imag- 
inable fiery baptism, test and impact, of the beautiful 
spirit out of the dull ores of circumstance and matter.” 
Growth comes through opposition. “If it were not so, 
righteousness could’ not be brought to pass,” says the 
Book of Mormon. Evils exist all about us, and so we 
must overcome them. Only thus can we gain spiritual 
strength, 7 | 

The Saints of the first years of the Church had their 
battles, their struggles to keep the faith. Some of them 
Opposition fell by the wayside through lack of faith, 
in early but most of them came out of this conflict 
days. stronger to resist and firmer in the faith. 

In Ohio trouble came about chiefly through some men 
who had left the Church and who then, as is nearly always 
the way with apostates, turned with extreme bitterness 


Value of 
opposition. 


116 OUR CHURCH AND’ PEOPLE 


against both their former faith and their former friends. 

The truth is, that in the hasty growth of “Mormonism” 

in Kirtland and vicinity a number of men had entered 

the Church who were not really ripe for 
Apostasy. conversion. Their change in belief had 

been too quick to be permanent. Among 
these were two preachers, and two Johnson boys. The 
home of these four men was at Hiram, Ohio. In Kirt- 
land also there were a great many who turned against 
the Church and its president—Frederick G. Williams, one 
of the prophet’s counselors, William E. McLellin, two 
Johnsons, John F. Boynton, and Parley P. Pratt, all mem- 
bers of the quorum of Apostles, Warren Parish, clerk to 
Joseph, and others whom it is not necessary to name here. 
Of all these, Parley P. Pratt was the only one to regain 
his faith. But at this time they were very bitter against 
those who remained in the Church, especially against the 
Prophet, whom they termed “fallen.” 

In March, 1832, the spirit of apostasy in Hiram broke 
out in mob violence against Joseph Smith and Sidney 
Rigdon. Some men stole into the Prophet’s bedroom on 
this occasion, when he was sitting up with his sick chil- 
dren, dragged him out to a place a little way from the 
house and, stripping his clothes off, covered his bare 
body with tar and feathers. They would have forced 
him to drink some poisonous liquid, but the bottle broke 
against his teeth. Sidney Rigdon was similarly mis- 
treated by another gang of mobocrats on the same night. 

Violent scenes also were enacted in Kirtland. In 1837 
an unchartered bank, called the “Kirtland Safety Society” 
was organized. Joseph Smith and other 
leading men in the Church were officers. 
The next year it failed, along with dozens 


Scenes in 
Kirtland. 


TNO TORT E WORLD | 117 


of banks in all parts of the United States. But the 
‘Prophet’s enemies were not slow to make use of this 
failure against him. So the cry of “fallen prophet” be- 
gan to be heard everywhere. He was denounced at Kirt- 
land meetings. The very temple, so full of sacred 
memories, was the scene of anger and scuffling among 
apostates. Outsiders, seeing the “Mormons” at outs with 
one another, added fuel to the flame by pressing the 
faithful Saints for debts and planting suits against them 
in the courts. 


But Joseph had his defenders. One of these was Brig- 
ham Young. Once he saved his friend’s life by going to 
warn him to take another road to Kirtland. 
Defenders. than the one he intended to take. Another 
time he defended him at a meeting, where 
some men had met to plot against the Prophet. Another 
of these defenders was John Taylor, who had lately come 
from Canada. After listening at a temple meeting to a 
great deal of abuse of Joseph, he rose and rebuked the 
iProphet’s detractors. In his usual courteous and dig- 
nified way he reminded them that it was owing to Joseph 
that the Saints had received so much light on the Scrip- 
tures and religious things, and told them frankly that the 
spirit of hatred such as they manifested had never brought 
light and comfort to any one. 


In the end, however, neither Brigham Young nor John 
Taylor, nor anybody else who spoke up for the Prophet 
was safe in Kirtland, much less the Prophet himself. So 
one by one they all, including Joseph, left for Missouri. 

As you know, the first “Mormon” settlements in 
Missouri were made in Jackson county in 1831. From 


118 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


then on the number of Saints there increased 

Crean till, in the latter part of the year 1833, theré 
1ssourl, 

were between twelve and fifteen hundred of 
them in and around Independence... Here also, as you 
will remember, Zion was to be established with a mag- 
nificent temple, to which Christ was to come. Here, 
then, the “Mormon” people bought land, tilled it, built 
houses and barns, held meetings, and preached and prac- 
ticed the principles of their religion. It is certain that 
in these respects the Saints showed more enterprise than 
the general run of “old settlers’ there, who had come 
mainly from the South, where work of the hand was 
done by black slaves. 

Then arose differences between these two elements of 
the population, for they were not able to mix very much,— 
so little had they in common. And these differences grew, 
as differences have a ‘habit of doing, till there was a 
physical clash. The non-“Mormons” held a public meet- 
ing, at which they said the most scandalous things about 
the new-comers. Feeling ran high. Presently a “Mor- 
mon” bishop—Edward Partridge, the mildest of mild men 
was tarred and feathered, a favorite mode of mob 
violence in those days. The Saints appealed to the law, 
but as all the machinery of the courts was in the hands 
of the other party, scant attention was paid to their 
petitions. A spell of peace followed, but it was suddenly 
broken, and the “Mormons” were driven out of the 
county, all of them, at the point of the gun, in the winter 
time, under circumstances of extreme hardship and suf- 
fering, leaving nearly all their property in the hands of 
the mobbers. 

They found refuge across the river in Clay county. 
Their condition went to the hearts of the people there, 





“NOT OF THE WORLD” 119 


who treated the exiles with consideration. 
Refuge in Every vacant house was given over to them. 
Clay Co. : : 

Work was provided for such as needed it— 
farm work for the men, house work for the women. The 
Saints did not, however, expect to stay in Clay county. 
It was their intention to go back to Jackson county as 
soon as they could do so. 


Soon, therefore, steps were taken to re-possess their 
homes. First of all, they took the matter to the courts, 
but obtained no justice there for various reasons. Then 
they petitioned the governor of the State for redress, and 
also the President of the United States, from neither of 
whom did they obtain any satisfaction. The governor re- 
plied that he did not have the authority to reinstate the 
Saints, and the president, that it was a State affair in 
which he could not interfere. 


As a last resort, there was organized by the Saints in 
the East what was known as “Zion’s army.” This body 
consisted of about two hundred men. The 

Zion’s army. purpose of the organization was to see what 
could be done to assist the exiles in Missouri 

back to the homes from which they had been driven. 
With loaded wagons, with silence and reserve, and with 
great orderliness, this body of armed men marched 
through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois into Missouri, much 
to the wonderment of the people on their road. Once 
cholera broke out in the camp, of which many died in 
horrible agony. Arrived at their destination, they tried 
arbitration, but the terms of the Jackson county people 
were so hard that the Saints could not think of accepting 
them. Accordingly the army was dissolved, the members 
returned to their homes in the East, the exiled “Mormons” 


120 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


prepared to stay in Clay county, and Zion, for the time 
being, was unredeemed. 

As, however, the “old settlers” in Clay county saw the 
lessening hopes of the Saints respecting their former 
homes, they began to tire of their bargain with the new- 
comers, especially as they saw also that they were in- 
creasing in numbers. So they concluded that one of 
two things would happen: either the “Mormons” would 
have to move or else there would be a repetition of the 
scenes across the river. The “Mormons” decided to 
move. 

Their new home was a wild and uninhabited prairie 
just north-east of Clay county. It was then part of Ray 

county, but a new county was created spe- 
Caldwell Co, cially for the “Mormons.” Here they 

flocked from all parts of the country till 
presently there were upwards of fifteen thousand Saints 
here and in the adjoining county of Daviess. Towns 
sprang up almost over night—Far West, where there 
was dedicated a temple site; Adam-ondi-Ahman, where 
“Adam had bestowed on his posterity his last blessing ;” 
and other settlements only less important in “Mormon’ 
history. It was here that the Prophet, as well as other 
Church leaders, came when he left Ohio. 

Still the Saints were pursued by “the enemy of all 
righteousness.” The scene shifted in an unbelievably 
short time from one of peace to one of fury and violence 
such as they had never before witnessed in their most 
troublous days. Wild rumors were circulated to the ef- 
fect that the “Mormons” had decided to drive out all the 
“old settlers” in their own county and also in the newer 
counties adjacent. So these “old settlers” armed them- 
selves, and induced the governor to order out the State 


SNOROT THE WORT ID” 121 


militia. To one of his generals the governor issued his 
notorious order to expell or exterminate the “Mormons.” 
And the Saints armed in self-defense. That the spirit 
actuating the mob-militia was both bitter and cruel is evi- 
denced by the Haun’s Mill massacre, in which nineteen 
persons were savagely butchered. Joseph Smith and six 
other leaders were betrayed into the hands of the opposing 
army near the town of Far West, and for months were 
in prison in Independence, Richmond, and other towns. 
Meantime, in the closing days of 1839, the whole “Mor- 
mon” people were driven from the State. 

Brigham Young conducted the exodus. He left his 
family five times on the way to aid others who were less 
Ex puleion able than himself. Samuel H. Smith and 
from seven others were pursued many miles by 
Missouri. a band of men who had sworn vengeance 
against them. The Prophet’s parents had to borrow an 
outfit to make the journey from the State. During the 
earlier portion of the journey it rained all the time, and 
later it snowed several inches. 

What a beautiful thing it is to come out of a fight with 
the forces of evil, unscathed, especially if one has fought 
in the right spirit. This is the “good fight’ of which 
the Apostle Paul speaks, as a result of which is to come 
a “rich reward” laid up, not in this world only, but in 
heaven as well. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Explain, “It must needs be that there is opposition in all 
things.” 

2. What do you imagine would happen to you if you were not 
“opposed” in anything you wished to say or do or be? 

3. In what ways has opposition been useful to our Church? 
In what ways has this opposition manifested itself? 

4. Why should a person or a community overcome? 


GHAPTER TeV ET 
RISING FROM THE ASHES 


In all probability you have seen a house on fire, even 
if it has been only in a motion picture show. It may 
have been a public building that was aflame. 


The burnt 
house You watched the great clouds of black 
rebuilt. smoke rolling from the structure, almost 


obscuring it from view. Then suddenly you saw the 
red flames, like wild things hungering for food, whipping 
away the smoke, so as to get a better hold, it would seem, 
on whatever was burnable about the place. You may 
have seen the long tongues of flame leap, now out of 
this upper window, now out of that, reaching round the 
corners and over the roof, hunting savagely for some- 
thing it could eat into. If it was night, the spectacle 
would be all the more splendid, with everything for many 
rods around lighted up and heated in the red glow. 
Presently, instead of fiery tongues darting here and there, 
the flames united into one great conflagration, and be- 
fore long what was left of the building, if it were of 
wood, tumbled down with a resounding crash that may 
have been heard half a mile away. Then the fire, like a 
huge animal that has grown tired with too much exer- . 
tion, settled down to die. There was a smouldering and a 
smoking and an occasional flaring, and after a few hours 
only the ashes remained on the heated ground. 

That black, charred ruin looks very much like the end 
of it all—does it not? And it would be, too, if it were 
not for the unconquerable will and energy and purpose 
of the man or the city that owned the building in the 


























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RISING FROM THE ASHES 125 


first place. So, in an unbelievably short time, a new 
structure stands on the spot where the fire was—a build- 
ing, it may be, not only more beautiful, but one that will 
defy the furious tongue of any flame. It is a wonderful 
thing, this determination never to submit to outward rhis- 
fortune, this will to rise from the ashes of seeming de- 
feat, this power to overcome and to win out in spite of 
everything. 

Of this all-conquering spirit, we have a fine example 
in the way the Latter-day Saints survived the circum- 
stances into which they were plunged by 
their distressing experiences in Missouri. It 
shows, almost more than anything else in 
our history, how full “Mormonism” is of the spirit that 
will not down, of the spirit that, through hard work and 
intelligence and faith in God, overcomes every obstacle 
that appears in its path. Nauvoo the Beautiful, in I- 
linois, became a rising from the ashes of Missouri. 

You may remember in what sad plight the Saints were 
Conditi when they were driven out of Missouri in 

ondition 
of Saints the fall of 1839. Let us recall some of those 
in Nauvoo.  garrowing details. 

There were about twelve thousand people—men, 
women and children—all fleeing from the destroying 
wrath of their pursuers. It was the season of the year 
when rains and snow and frost were to be expected. 
There was not time for:the fugitives to gather and take 
with them much property. Even if there had been, their 
adversaries would not have allowed them to take it. So 
they fled across the border with whatever, in their haste 
to get away, they could snatch up. Some had teams 
and wagons, but many had not. So there were great 
numbers who pushed their way to the borders on foot, 


The will to 
survive. 


126 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


catrying as many of the necessities of life as they could. 
The experiences of Joseph and Lucy Smith, parents 
of the Prophet, on this memorable exodus will give us 
an idea of the conditions under which it was made. 
The removal of these two aged persons was accom- 
plished in a borrowed wagon. Bedding, clothing and 
provisions were piled in the vehicle. The 
One Case. first night they lodged in an “old log house, 
which was very uncomfortable.” Half the 
next day Mother Smith traveled on foot. The third day 
it rained. ‘That night, wet to the skin, they stayed in a 
house that was “so filthy as to sicken the stomach,” for 
which they had to pay seventy-five cents. The fourth 
night, wet again from the down-pour of the .day, they 
spend with no warmth of any kind. In a pelting rain- 
storm they reached the swampy bottoms, six miles from 
the Mississippi river. Here it grew colder, snow taking 
the place of rain. They waded the swamps, the whole of 
the six miles, sinking, each step, over their ankles in mire. 
On the river banks were thousands of men, women and 
children waiting to go over to the Illinois side. Six inches 
of snow fell. “We made our beds upon it,” says Mrs. 
Smith, “and went to rest with what comfort we might 
under such circumstances. The next morning our beds 
were covered with snow, and much of the bedding under 
which we lay was frozen. ‘We rose and tried to light a 
fire, but, finding it impossible, we resigned ourselves to 
our comfortless situation. 
The condition of these thousands of poor people, flee- 
ing from persecution, went to the hearts of the citizens 
of Quincy, Illinois. So these citizens gath- 
At Quincy. ered money and provisions for the fugitive 
“Mormons,” got them houses to live in, and 


RISING FROM THE ASHES 127 


otherwise helped them till they were on their feet again. 

But the Saints had no idea of remaining any longer 
on charity than they had to. As soon as the Prophet and 
some other leaders reached Quincy—for they had been 
imprisoned in Missouri all the time of the exodus—they 
set about looking for a new home. 

Fifty miles above Quincy, in a graceful horse-shoe bend 
of the Mississippi river, the father of waters, was a 
marshland that went by the altogether mis- 
leading name of Commerce. For a mile or 
so eastward from the river the ground rose 
gradually, and then broke off into a waving prairie, ex- 
tending for many miles and covered with a variety of wild 
flowers. But it was at the time unfit for human habita- 
tion, though a few cabins had been erected there. “The 
land was mostly covered with trees and brushes, and 
much of it was so wet that it was with difficulty that a 
footman could get through, and totally impassable for 
aateani «| 

Yet, with a fine sense for beautiful situations, Joseph 
Smith decided to settle his people on this sloping curve 
in the river. Several hundred acres of this and other 
land were purchased by the Church, the payments to be 
made later; for the Saints did not have the money to 
buy the land outright—upwards of seventy thousand dol- 
lars in all. And, as soon as the site was decided upon, the 
Saints began moving there from Quincy. At first, fam- 
ilies occupied all the old houses available, some lived in 
tents and wagons, and others were content with the open 
air. It was not long, however, till the dampness of the 
ground and the poor physical condition of the Saints com- 
bined to break down the people in a wild siege of fever 
and ague. Without money or property, without homes 


Situation 
of Nauvoo. 


128 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


or other shelter to speak of, weary and sick—this was the 
low ebb in the fortunes of the Latter-day Saints as a peo- 
ple, the period of the charred mass that had once been 
a beautiful structure. But they never lost hope or faith 
in their destiny. 

From this moment they began to rise. First, by a 
series of miracles, they were healed of their sickness. 
Then they set to work to build a city which 
should be far-famed for its beauty and pros- 
perity. It should be named Nauvoo, which 
means the Beautiful. The State legislature passed a bill 
incorporating the City of Nauvoo, giving it a charter “on 
principles so broad,” the Prophet said, “that every honest 
man might dwell secure under its protecting influences.” 
The city was to have a mayor, four aldermen, and nine 
councilors, all elected by qualified voters. Schools were 
also provided for, including a university. 

In the meantime public and private buildings, stores 
and a hotel began to be erected in the city, and farms to 
be platted off and cultivated outside the town. Many of 
the dwelling houses were of brick, and some of them 
with upper rooms. One of these—the Mansion House— 
became famous as the residence of the Prophet. The 
Nauvoo House, a place where travelers might stay when 
they came to visit the “Mormons,” was soon under way. 
It was only a little while after the removal of the Saints 
to this place till they took steps for the erection of a 
temple. The Nauvoo Legion, a body of men organized 
under the laws of the State, consisting at one time of 
about five thousand men in uniforms and commanded by 
Joseph Smith as lieutenant-general, became known widely 
for its efficiency as a military organization. 

The city of Nauvoo grew very rapidly in population, 


Rise of the 
new home. 


RISING FROM THE ASHES 129 


prosperity, and the happiness of its inhabitants. As soon 

as the fruits of the second mission to Eng- 
See ee land began to appear, the population in- 

creased through immigration till Nauvoo 
became the largest city in Illinois; and the thrift, activity, 
and intelligence of its inhabitants made it known as one 
of the most beautiful and enterprising in the State. Trav- 
elers from all parts of the East and even from Europe, 
including men of note in other states and countries, were 
frequent in their visits to Nauvoo, especially in the years 
1843 and 1844. The “Mormon”’ people, and their remark- 
able leader in particular, attracted attention throughout 
the State as a.people of great promise. 

As already stated, the elasticity with which the crushed 
“Mormons” leaped again into life is a marvel of energy, 
hope, and faith. It should be a lesson to individuals as 
well as communities of the power that resides in an 
earnest love of truth and belief in one’s future. There is 
no greater medicine to revive a man or a people that is 
down, like work and faith in God. 


QUESTIONS 


1. In what way is the whole Nauvoo period of our history a 
“rising from the ashes” ? 

2. What principle involved here can we apply in our own lives? 

3. What things do you have to overcome in your lives? 


(SELA. Bais Rome LEE 
“OVER THE GREAT WATERS” 


To what nationality do you belong? To what nation- 
ality do your parents belong? Your grandparents on 
both sides? And, after you have answered 
these questions, you will find it interesting 
to ask yourself the question, What part did 
the gospel have in bringing your parents and grandpar- 
ents together? lor you wiil doubtless discover that some 
at least of your ancestors were brought into the Church 
through “Mormon” missionaries. 

During this Nauvoo period of the history of the Church 
a mision to Palestine was undertaken and another and 
greater mission to England, concerning both of which we 
shall speak in this chapter. The second of these missions 
began the great immigration movement of the Church. 


Your 
nationality? 


Palestine and its ancient people have always interested 
the Christian world. This is due, of course, to the fact 
that the Bible, the greatest book in the world, 
came out of the Holy Land but mainly to 
the fact that Jesus lived and was crucified 
there. To Latter-day Saints there are special reasons, in 
addition to these, for their interest in the Israelites and 
their country. In the last days, when Jerusalem shall 
have been rebuilt and Zion established on this continent, 
there is to be a close connection, at least in spirit, between 
these two cities. Besides, the gospel is to be preached first 
to the Gentiles and then to the Jews. 

As in the case of the American Indians, or Lamanites, 
it was thought by the Saints during the Nauvoo period 


Mission to 
Palestine. 


“OVER THE GREAT WATERS” 131 


that perhaps the time had come for the Jews to be gath- 
ered to their native land. Accordingly, in 1840, Apostle 
Orson Hyde was apointed to a mission to Palestine. Be- 
fore this he had had a vision, in which he saw himself 
standing on the Mount of Olives blessing the land in 
‘preparation for the return of the Jews to that country. 

Leaving Nauvoo, he journeyed through the States, 

“without purse and scrip,’ preaching by the way, crossed 

the sea to England, passed through Ger- 
pont <i many where he remained some time study- 

ing the language, went thence to Constan- 
tinople, Cairo, and Alexandria, and, after enduring many 
hardships, finally reached Jerusalem after eighteen 
months. At last he stood on the sacred Mount, as he 
had seen himself in vision, and prayed that God would 
remove the curse from the Holy Land and plant in the 
hearts of the children of Jacob a desire to build up the 
waste places of their native country. According to the 
ancient custom of this people, he erected a pile of stones 
there in witness of what he had done. Then he returned 
home. 

At this time there was not the least indication that 
the Jews were thinking of a return to Palestine. But 
since then the spirit of gathering has come upon them 
increasingly, till now it amounts to a virtual tide of immi- 
gration to that country from all parts of the world. Dur- 
ing the War their land was wrested from the hand of the 
Turk, and Lord Balfour, on behalf of the British govern- 
ment, declared that Palestine would be considered as the 
home land of the Jews. This has greatly helped the 
movement. 


The second mission to England, undertaken by eight 


132 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


of the apostles at the time when the Saints were settling 
in Illinois, is full of interesting details. 

Apostles John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff were 
the first to leave. Elder Woodruff was suffering from 

the ague. Elder Taylor was wondering how 
Mission to his family would fare with him away and 
England. ; : 
with the Saints in constant danger. On 

the outskirts of Nauvoo they came upon Parley P. Pratt, 
stripped of coat and vest, hat and shoes and stockings, 
hewings logs for a house. Having no money, he gave 
them a purse. A little farther along they were given a 
dollar by Heber C. Kimball. Both of these men were, 
themselves, expecting soon to leave for England. At 
Indianapolis Elder Taylor fell sick and was delayed for 
three weeks. Elder Woodruff continued on his way. 

The next to leave were the two brothers, Parley P. and 
Orson Pratt, “in our own private carriage’ says the 
former with pardonable pride. At Philadelphia they had 
the pleasure of seeing the Prophet and Sidney Rigdon, 
who were on their way to Washington to lay before the 
President of the United States the facts concerning the 
expulsion of the “Mormon” people from Missouri. 

Later in the year Apostles Brigham Young and Heber 
C. Kimball began their journey. Both were so weak 
from sickness that they could barely walk a few rods. 
Elder Kimball’s whole family was down with the fever. 
When the two elders reached Quincy they were compelled 
to stay there several days on account of their physical 
condition. ; , 

Apostle George A. Smith, with Reuben Hedlock and 
Theodore Turley, who were the last to leave, had an 
equally heroic struggle with disease. As the three men 
were going slowly along the road their wagon upset, 


DON ORE ERGREAT WoebeRs* 133 


nearly throwing them into the river. Elders Smith and 
Turley were too sick to rise, and had to be helped by 
their companion, who was only a trifle stronger. A 
passer-by asked the driver if he had robbed a grave. 

_ Arriving in New York, all the missionaries waited there 
for some time, working and preaching. They embarked 
for England at different times. 

The English mission, which had been left in charge 
of Elders Willard Richards, Joseph Fielding, and William 

Clayton, had grown considerably in num- 
hes a bers. Elder Clayton had gone to Man- 

chester and in a few months had organized 
a branch there. Two local elders had opened up a con- 
ference in Scotland. The branches in and around Preston 
had received large additions. 

At a conference held in Preston there were eight of the 
apostles, Willard Richards having been ordained to that 
office in England. It was decided to publish a maga- 
zine, The Millennial Star, with Parley P. Pratt as editor, 
to publish a collection of hymns for the use of the Saints 
in England, and to print an edition of the Book of Mor- 
mon. The apostles then separated for different parts of 
the mission. 

Elder Taylor went to Liverpool, where he baptized 
more than a hundred. He preached also in Ireland and 
the Isle of Man, but only a few received the gospel in 
these places. 

‘A conference in London was organized by Apostles 
Kimball, Woodruff, and Smith. Prejudice here was at 
first very great. Not for long, however, for before these 
men left for home, Elder Lorenzo Snow had raised up 
a branch of four hundred there. Elder Snow is he who 
later became president of the Church. 


134 OUR CHURCH AND* PEOPLE 


The greatest success, though, had attended the labors 
of Elder Woodruff. After leaving London he had gone 
Elder to Herefordshire by direct command of the 
Woodruff’s Lord to him. Here he found a society 
SUCCESS. called the United Brethren, a body of about 
six hundred persons, including forty-five preachers, which 
had broken away from the Methodists. They were wait- 
ing, they said, for the true church, which they believed 
would come to them. So great was the desire to hear 
the new preacher from America that the churches in the 
neighborhood were empty of a Sunday. One of the 
pastors of these churches sent a constable to arrest Elder 
Woodruff for preaching. But the officer was converted 
at the meeting. Then he sent two clerks to spy on the 
newcomer. They too were baptized. 

During the eight months that he labored in this dis- 
trict Elder Woodruff brought into the Church more than 
eighteen hundred persons, including all the United Breth- 
ren except one. Among these converts were two hundred 
preachers of various denominations. This Hereford- 
shire mission, says Elder Woodruff, “shows the import- 
ance of listening to the still, small voice of the Spirit of 
God.” 

It was a remarkable mission. Five thousand copies ol. 
the Book of Mormon had been published, three thousand 

copies of a hymn book, a thousand persons 
Results of — had emigrated to Nauvoo, and nearly eight 
gael thousand had joined the Church. All this 
had been done in about one year. When it was over, the 
apostles boarded ship for home, leaving Elder Parley P. 
Pratt in charge of the mission. 

Most of those who have received the gospel in this 
dispensation are of “the blood of Ephraim.” That is, they 


SOV IR Pine GR PAT WAL ERS? 135 


are descendants of Joseph who was sold into Egypt. 
through his son of this name. Now, many great blessings 
were promised to Ephraim by his grandfather, Jacob, and 
other prophets. It would be interesting for you to find 
out just what these blessings are, and then how you may 
aid in realizing the fulfillment of these promises. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Tell the class your nationality; the nationality of your 
father and your mother, of your grandparents. 

2. Give some details under which your parents, if they were 
not born in the Church, embraced the faith. Or your grand- 
parents. 

3. Explain to the class the conditions under which you would 
most probably be living now, if it were not for “Mormonism.” 


CHAPTER XIX 
TWO WORLDS TO CONQUER 


The Nauvoo period is the greatest in our history for 
throwing light on the teachings of the New Testament. 
One of these teachings concerns the question, What be- 
comes of us after death, of which we shall speak in this 
chapter. 


Have you ever looked upon the face of the dead? If 
so, you may have asked yourself the question, What is 
d the difference between life and death, and 

The live and . 
thesead what becomes of us at death? Questions as 


old as the world, and older. 


In the dead, as you may know, all the organs of the 
living are found. The eyes are there, but they do not 
see the beauty of the world. The ears are there, but they 
do not hear the concord of sweet sound. The nose is 
there, but to its nostrils are wafted on the silent couriers 
of the air no fragrance of the flowers and the warm earth. 
The tongue is there, but it cannot say, “I love you.” The 
hands are there, but they are incapable of grasping the 
hand of another in friendship. The legs and feet are 
there, but they have no power to take the body over the 
pleasant meadows or through the quiet woods or across 
the silent streams. Everything in fact is there as it was 
in life, so far as anything is concerned that we can see 
with the eyes of our head. It is as if you should come 
home some dark night and press the button for the light 
to flood the room, and the light did not come on, al- 
though the bulbs and the wire were there without defect, 


TWO WORLDS TO CONQUER 137 


for the power had been shut off, up there in the canyon. 

What has gone from the body? 

The spirit has gone. This it was that made the eye 
to see, the ear to hear, the nose to smell, the tongue to 
speak, the hand to clasp, the feet to walk, just as it was 
the electricity that made the wire to tingle and the room 
to fill with light. Although we cannot see this inner 
power in the body with our physical eyes, yet we know 
none the less that it is there, even as we know the current 
of electricity to be present when we see the light, for this 
unseen personality produces in the body the effect of 
knowing and willing and feeling. 

Now this human spirit—what form is it in? It has 
exactly the same form as the human body. That is to 

say, it has a head, a trunk, and limbs, just 
Our spirit. like the body. And it has the same powers 

as we see manifest in the body. It is not 
the body, but the spirit within the body, that knows and 
loves and decides what to do. In short, it is the spirit 
that really lives and moves and has its being. 

The spirit can live without the body, although the body 
cannot live without the spirit. It is the absence of this 
spirit that brings about death, as we call it. And the 
spirit not only will live after the body has mouldered 
into dust, but existed before the body came into being. 
That is, it was in another world—a spirit world—before 
it came here to take upon itself a physical tabernacle. 
And after a time the body will come to life again, occu- 
pied once more by the spirit, and then the two, reunited, 
will go on to perfection in the endless life of the next 
world. 


It was said a little way back that this spirit existed 
before it came here in the flesh and that it will be re- 


138 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


united with the body in the resurrection. Let us dweil 
on these two points a little. 


Before this earth was formed your spirit existed in 
a spirit world. There also were the spirits of your father 
and mother, your brothers and sisters, and 
The pre- all your relatives, present and past. And 
existence, ee 
there, too, were the spirits of all those who 
have ever lived, who now live, and who ever will live, 
on this planet—countless myriads, as you may well imag- 
ine, in all stages of intellectual and moral qualities and 
degrees. Whether we knew one another there or not, 
what we were occupied with, and a thousand other ques- 
tions, the word of the Lord does not tell us, and we can 
get the information in no other way. But the fact of 
our ante-mortal existence is established beyond all ques- 
tion by the Scriptures, especially those of our own day. 


Jesus tells us that He was with the Father in the be- 
ginning “before the world was.” And since He is our 
elder Brother, this would be just as true of all the rest 
of mankind as of Him. Jeremiah, one of the Old Testa- 
ment prophets, we are informed, was set apart for the 
work he did in mortality before he was born into this 
world. Abraham, one of our own inspired writings tells 
us, was shown in vision the spirits of men in the pre- 
existent state. These were all to take upon them bodies 
of flesh and blood on this earth, which was to be created 
and prepared for them. Some of these spirits, among 
whom was Abraham, were chosen at that time to be lead- 
ers on the earth. It was in this pre-existence that the 
plan of life and salvation was proposed by the Savior 
and that He was chosen to give His life for man. It was 
here also that Joseph Smith was set apart to open the dis- 


TWO WORLDS TO CONQUER 139 


‘pensation of the fulness of times, the greatest of all dis- 
pensations of God’s mercy to man. 

Now we know that at death the body is placed in the 
grave and covered with earth. But what becomes of 
the spirit? Where does it go when the person dies? 
Does it live on? And if so under what conditions does 
it live, and what does it do? 

The spirit does not go to heaven or hell immediately— 
the good to the former place and the bad to the latter. 

Instead, the spirits of all men, the good and 
The spirit the bad alike, go at death into a world of 
world. spirits to await the resurrection from the 
dead. | 

As for the conditions under which spirits live in the 
spirit world, the intermediate state between this and the 

other world, they are in some respects much 
Hitec ais: the same as we live under in mortality. 

There, as here, the spirit thinks and acts and 
feels—is capable of experiencing truth and falsehood as 
it did in the flesh. And there, as here, it is able to grow, 
or otherwise, in goodness and intelligence. Whether it 
remembers what happened to it in the pre-existent world 
or in this world of the flesh, we can only conjecture. 
There, as here, the righteous spirits are happy, and the 
unrighteous spirits are unhappy. To the first, it is a 
state of peace and rest, which has been very aptly called 
“Paradise” meaning a beautiful park, where there is “rest 
from care and trouble and sorrow.’ The wicked there 
are described by one of the prophets among the Nephites: 
as in “a state of darkness, of awful, fearful looking for 
the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them,” a 
state where there is “weeping and wailing and gnashing 
of teeth’ on account of iniquity. 


140 OUR. .CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


When the time comes for the spirit to leave this inter- 
mediate world, the body will be raised from the grave and 
the two be reunited as now. This is called 
resurrection, As in the case of Jesus, it will 
be the same body that it has occupied here, 
only then it will be immortal like the spirit. In this resur- 
rection not only the “good” but likewise the “bad” will 
take part—all in fact who have ever lived and died on 
this planet, irrespective of age or color or moral and in- 
tellectual condition. It will not, however, take place all 
at once. There is the “first”? resurrection, which began 
with the rising of Christ from the dead and is still in 
progress, and there is also the “final” resurrection, when 
all that remain shall “come forth”—to be judged accord- 
ing to their deeds. This immortalized person—immortal 
in body as well as in spirit—is now ready for the “next 
world” of which we hear so much in the Christian 
churches. 

Where is this next world? It is nowhere else than on 
this earth. “In the beginning” this world, not some other 
planet, was created for man. It was part 
of the plan proposed in that pre-existent 
state, of which we have already spoken, that 
an earth should be made where these spirits might “work 
out their salvation.” It was never intended that man 
should dwell here only during mortality. Jesus said, 
“The meek shall inherit the earth;”’ he did not say that 
they should be wafted through space to some other 
planet. This is man’s home. And it is a beautiful home 
too, is it not? Cannot one be as happy here as anywhere 
else? “The mind is its own place,” says the poet, “and 
in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” 

In one of the revelations to the Prophet Joseph Smith 


The 
resurection. 


Where is 
heaven? 


TWO WORLDS TO CONQUER 141 


we have been given a glimpse into this future state of man, 
after the resurrection. Since men differ in 
the degree of their intelligence, goodness, 
and character, there ought therefore to be 
differences in the degrees of glory in the next world— 
“many mansions,” as Christ calls them. Now the Prophet 
tells us in his great vision of glories that there are three 
general “kingdoms’’—the celestial, the terrestrial, and the 
telestial. The celestial kingdom is inherited by those who 
received the testimony of Jesus, who overcame by faith, 
who kept the commandments of God. These constitute 
“the church of the first born” and shall dwell in the 
presence of God and Christ forever. In the terrestrial 
kingdom are those who did not receive the testimony of 
Jesus in the flesh but. afterward received it. These re- 
ceive not “of the fulness of the Father” but are admitted 
to the presence of the Son. Those who enter the telestial 
kingdom will receive visitations from only the terrestrial 
kingdom, because, although they did not deny the Holy 
Spirit, they did not receive Christ. These kingdoms are 
typified by the sun, the moon, and the stars. 

One of these kingdoms you must belong to in the next 
world. Which one? That depends on how you live in 
this world. It is necessary for one, in order to attain 
the celestial kingdom, to live one’s best here and to-day. 


Three 
kingdoms. 


QUESTIONS 


1. If, as stated in the lesson, man is dual in his nature, which 
is the more important—the care of the body or the care of the 
spirit ? 

2. How do we care for the body? Why should we? What 
relation has the body to the mind, that we should care for it? 

3. In what way may we care for the mind? Why should we 
do so? 

4. What steps are you taking for the care of both body and 
spirit? 


CHAPTER XX 
“FOR TIME AND ETERNITY” 


You have, no doubt, either read or heard the story of 
“Robinson Crusoe.’ If so, you will remember that he 
The was shipwrecked on an island, where he 
loneliness lived all alone for many years. You may re- 
of Crusoe. call how very lonely he was, shut off from 
the company of every other human being. Then, one 
time, he saw Friday’s footprints on the sand. How rest- 
less he was till he had found the one who had made them. 
Poor Friday, when Crusoe discovered him, was not much 
to boast of as a companion, but he was better than no- 
body. He gave Crusoe someone to talk to, someone to 
look at, someone to sympathize with him in his moments 
of depression, so that his heart would not eat itself out in 
utter loneliness. 

For human beings are intended for one another. We 
all love the company of others of our kind. As a matter 


We are of fact, we could not live and be happy if 
made for we were altogether alone. To be in the 
companion- . 

ship. company of those we love is one of the 


greatest sources of happiness in the world. Life wouid 
not be worth living if we had to live it alone, like Crusoe. 
Perhaps we do not need to be told this, because we have 
all experienced the joys of friendship and affection. But 
it is sometimes a good thing to imagine what our life 
would be like if we were deprived of our associations 
with others, for it helps us to appreciate our companion- 
ships the more. 

A great many people wonder whether we shall have 


VEO Keli Vie RAND sh DR RN Ty” 143 


the joys of friendship and love in the next world. Every 


Shall we time one of our friends or relatives dies we 
pAOPAaNe, are led to ponder anew over this question. 
heaven? Shall we know one another there? Shall we 


enjoy one another’s company in the hereafter as we do 
here? Will love be as powerful an influence in our lives 
in the other world as in this? These and similar ques- 
tions often come up in our minds when we think of the 
future state. 

In truth, however, we should have no doubts in the 
matter, in view of what the Lord has revealed in our 
day on this subject. 

_ With mankind the home is the center of the affections. 
The lower animals do not make homes. But not only do 
our feelings lead us to make homes for our- 


Home the : : f ee 
center of selves, but we find their chief exercise in 
our life. the home during all our lives. A boy is not 


‘considered a man till he is twenty-one nor a girl a woman 
till she is eighteen. During the greater part of these 
years both of them need the care of father and mother. 
A child of seven is not usually very large or able to 
care for itself, but a horse or a cow or a dog of that age 
is already getting old. So you see, a human being, dur- 
ing these years of childhood and early youth when it re- 
quires the care of its elders, forms very strong attach- 
ments for its parents and its brothers and sisters. Then, 
when it is between, say, twenty and twenty-five, it goes 
out and makes a home for itself, repeating the work of its 
father and mother. Home, therefore, the place where we 
are born and reared to manhood and womanhood and the 
place where we live after we are married and have one 
of our own, is the center of our mortal affections. 

A very great deal depends on what kind of home we 


144 OUR* CHURGH “ANDFPEOPLE 


have, not only during the days when we are growing up 
but after we, ourselves, are married. What 


Conditions ; : 2 
of a good are the things that, from the point of view 
home. of our religion, make for the best home-life ? 


In the first place, the husband and the wife in a good 
“Mormon” home are married for time and eternity. The 
temple ceremony is beautiful and impressive 
ete in itself. Under it the husband and wife are 
husband and wife in the next world, as well 
as in this. For these ties will be binding in the hereafter 
as well as here. And then, too, all the children born after 
a temple ceremony belong to the parents in heaven as 
well as on earth. It is a beautiful thought that after our 
present mortal life parents and children will belong to one 
another and wiil recognize this relationship as we do here. 
In other words, the ties of relationship which we form 
here under the authority of the priesthood will continue 
after death to be a source of joy and comfort. It is some-_ 
thing to look forward to and to prepare for, is it not? 
In the next place, a good Latter-day Saint home is a 
place where some attention is paid to the practice of 
religion. Every day in such a home begins 
Religion in and ends with family prayer, in which not 
the home. i! . 
only the father and mother but the children 
as well take their turn at the family altar in praying. 
Maybe there is reading of the Scripture and singing of 
hymns. Most likely also there is what has come to be 
called “Home Night,’ when a whole evening is given 
over to such exercises as bring the members of the fam- 
ily into closer relationship. These may consist, not only 
of prayer and scripture-reading and singing of sacred 
songs, but of declamations or games or light refreshments 
as well—anything in fact that may prove uplifting and 


“FOR TIME AND ETERNITY” 145 


suitable for the whole family. Besides the members of 
a good “Mormon” family cultivate the great virtues of 
kindness, courtesy, sincerity, honesty, thrift,- helpfulness, 
industry, forbearance, chastity. Could such a home as 
this fail to be happy in every respect? 

Three things you may do, now that you have studied 
about the home from the point of view of the Latter-day 
Saints. 

First, you can question yourself respecting your part 
in making your present home what it ought to be. To 
what extent can you contribute to make 
your home beautiful? Are you doing your 
part as fully as you can to make it so? In 
what ways can you improve your influence in your 
home? 

Secondly, you can look forward to the right kind of 
home for yourself some day. One of the things you can 
do is to cultivate the proper companionships. Your boy 
friends, if you are a girl, and your girl friends, if you 
are a boy, should be those of your own faith, so that later 
if you should marry them you may be married in the 
temple. For, as we have already stated, the husband and 
wife should be of the same religious faith, be they “Mor- 
mons” or Catholics or Baptists. And another thing you 
may do by way of preparation for the home you are to 
make by and by is to order your life so that your bishop 
will readily grant you a recommend to the temple. It is 
really not a good thing to go to the temple unless you be- 
lieve in its ordinances and make up your mind to abide 
by the covenants you enter upon there—to live uprightly 
to the best of your knowledge. Going to the temple with 
the spirit of doing right in your life, will be hetpful to 


you the rest of your days. 
10 


Things you 
may do. 


146 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


This matter of marrying out of the Church is more 
important than it is sometimes thought to be. Once a 
An instance of YOUNg “Mormon” girl married a man: out- 
marrying out side the Church. All went pretty well till 
of the Church children came into the home and were old 
enough to be sent to Sunday school and to church. She, 
very naturally, wished them to attend the religious 
meetings of her Church, for she had been reared in a good 
Latter-day Saint home. But her husband thought other- 
wise—and was firm that they should not be reared ‘‘Mor- 
mons.’ Finally, after a series of more or less angry dis- 
putes, he offered a compromise: They might go to her 
Church half the time and to his the other half. To this, 
however, she could not agree. And so the children did not — 
attend any religious services at all. 

Then the poor mother began to worry. She felt how 
wrong it would be to bring up her children without any 
more religious guidance than she was able to give them. 
lor she realized now, as she had never done before, that 
religion in the ‘best sense means everything in one’s life 
after one gets along on the path of this world. But what 
could she do? She could not discuss the subject any more 
with her husband. He had long since “‘set his foot down” 
on, all phases of the question. And then there was the 
matter of the other world in her life and the life of both 
her husband and the children. She saw now that she 
might be deprived of the family associations there, which 
would have been hers had she taken a different course 
in her life. And so she worried herself into a physical 
weakness, almost bordering on that of an invalid, as well 
as into a frame of mind that threatened her happiness for 
all time. 

The question of how things are likely to turn out in 


LCT Roy eh ve AN er ek NID ye? 147 


the long run should therefore receive the attention of 
young Latter-day Saints—men as well as women—when 
they are contemplating marriage. There are enough 
sources of disagreement in married life on the whole to 
make us think twice before introducing an even greater 
source of trouble in religious difference. 

And thirdly, you can take an even farther look ahead. 
You can look forward to the family relations you may 
hope to enjoy in the next world. [or you will surely 
die some day, like all the rest of the human family, and 
you will surely rise from the dead, with the rest of man- 
kind. - There is no doubt about these two facts. And 
you will wish the companionship of those whom you 
have loved in mortality. But if so, you must live in such 
a way as to merit their companionship there. This is 
something to look forward to. 


QUESTIONS 


1. In what respects does “Mormonism” help to preserve the 
home? 

2. What constitutes a good Latter-day Saint home? 

3. Of the three social educational forces—the home, the 
schocl, and the Church,—which is the most important? Why? 


ACE a Rex 
SEALING A TESTIMONY 


What is the greatest test of one’s faith in a cause? It 
is not what one is willing to say for it, but rather what 


The one is willing to do for it. Jesus said, 
supreme “Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
Lest. 


man lay down his life for his friends.” 

Now, the Prophet Joseph Smith laid down his life for 
his friends and for the cause he loved even more than 
he did his friends. It came about in this way: 

The causes that led to the murder of the Prophet were 
the growing feelings of bitterness among non-‘‘Mormons” 
Caveaerihe in Hancock county and the plottings of men 
Prophet’s in Nauvoo who had once belonged to the 
murder. Church. But the immediate occasion of 
this tragic event was the destruction of a paper, called: 
the Nauvoo Expositor, published by some apostates in 
the city. 

The first issue of this sheet appeared on the seventh of 
June, 1844. In it the leading citizens of the city were 
spoken of in the most indecent terms. In 
any other part of the West a mob would 
have destroyed the press, burned the build- 
ing, and perhaps killed the publishers of the slanderous 
paper. Asa matter of fact, there is great probability that 
the men responsible for the sheet wanted to excite the 
‘‘Mormons” to some deed of violence, so as to have a 
good pretext for public action against the leading men 
of the Church, especially the Prophet, whom they deemed 
in possession of too much power. But the Saints had had 


The 
“Expositor.” 


Dae N Groene ES TINLONY 149 


too much experience with the blind, head-long fury of 
mobs to be easily trapped in this way. They preferred 
to correct the wrong ina legal manner. The city marshall, 
by resolution of the city council, was directed to destroy 
the press as a public nuisance and to burn such copies of 
the paper as remained on hand. This he did. Some- 
one else—it may have been the apostates themselves—set 
fire to the building, but it was put out by the city 
authorities before it could do any considerable damage. 

Thereupon the leaders in the conspiracy against Joseph 
Smith “fled” to Carthage, a nearby town, and swore out 
Complaints complaint against him. As they repre- 
against the sented themselves to be victims of persecu- 
Prophet. tion and violence on the part of the ‘“Mor- 
and as there was already a strong feeling in the 
country against the Saints, these men found no difficulty 
in creating excitement and arousing a desire for speedy 
vengeance upon the citizens of Nauvoo, particularly the 
Prophet. The warrant on which Joseph was arrested 
required that he appear before a justice of the peace in 
Carthage or some other place. So he appeared before a 
justice of the peace in Nauvoo. But his enemies insisted 
that he go to Carthage, which he did not care to do, for 
very good reasons. Meantime, he kept Governor Ford 
informed of every step in the affair as it was taken by 
either side. 

Excitement in Hancock county by the twenty-first of 
June had reached such a pitch that the governor of the 
State deemed it wise to go to Carthage. 
When he reached this town, he found that 
a considerable armed force had been col- 
lected, ready for any emergency that might arise. If the 
governor had been a man of strong character, he would 





) 


mons’ 


Sentiment in 
the county. 


150 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


have sent the men in this force about their business. At 
least he would have taken care not to associate with the 
very men who were mostly the cause of the trouble. He 
did ask that the Prophet send him a delegation for a con- 
ference on the situation. But when John Taylor, an 
apostle, and Dr. John M. Bernhisel, a personal friend of 
Joseph’s, arrived there to represent the Prophet, they 
were required to confer with Governor Ford in the pres- 
ence of Joseph’s enemies, who constantly contradicted 
and insulted them as they laid before the chief executive 
the facts in the case There appeared to be no other way 
out of the difficulties than for the Prophet to go to 
Carthage to be tried. 

It seems that from the beginning of the trouble, Joseph 
Smith had had a premonition that his life would be for- 

feited as a result. On the morning of the 
Premonitions twenty-third he with his brother, Hyrum, 
of death. : 
and a few others went over the river with 

a view to going to the Rocky Mountains, but when false 
friends accused_him of deserting his people when they 
were in difficulties, he returned to the city, saying, “If 
my life is of no value to my friends, it is of none to 
myself.” As he left Nauvoo on his way to Carthage he 
said to Daniel H. Wells, who was not then in the Church, 
“T wish you to cherish my memory, and not think me the 
worst man in the world either.’ And later, after the 
party had left the city, he said, “I am going like a lamb 
to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; 
I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and 
towards all men. I shall die innocent, and it shall yet 
be said of me—he was murdered in cold blood.” 

You remember that the reason given for wanting the 
Prophet to go to Carthage was that he might be tried 


SEALING A TESTIMONY 151 


there by a certain justice of the peace. But when he 
reached this town, which he did at midnight, there seemed 
to be no disposition to bring him before that justice at 
all. Instead, he was taken before another. 

Great excitement prevailed on the arrival of the Prophet 
and his party—whooping and yelling and low ruffianism. 
He was thrust, with his companions, into 
prison, contrary to the explicit promise of 
the Governor. On the morning of the 
twenty-sixth Joseph had a long conference with Governor 
Ford, who not only promised to protect him from mob 
violence but to take him with him and his party to 
Nauvoo. Next day Governor Ford went to Nauvoo, 
leaving the Prophet and his friends practically in the 
hands of a mob. 

The afternoon of the twenty-seventh arrived. It was 
getting late. Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, John Taylor, 

and Willard Richards were in jail. They 
June 27th. were greatly depressed in spirit. The 

Prophet asked Elder Taylor to sing “A 
Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief,’ a hymn lately intro- 
duced in Nauvoo. Elder Taylor sang it twice over. 

Presently a number of men with blackened faces 
ascended the stairway, shooting as they came. Hyrum 
fell wounded, exclaiming, “I am a dead man!” The 
Prophet attempted to leap out of the window, thinking 
probably thus to save the lives of the others. His body 
was pierced by two bullets from below, and he fell for- 
ward, exclaiming, “O Lord, My God!” As a matter of 
fact, it was this act of Joseph’s that did save the lives of 
Elders Richards and Taylor, although the latter was 
wounded, for the men left the stairway as soon as the 
Prophet fell out of the window. The whole affair had 


Joseph in 
Carthage. 


152 OUR-CHURCH AND- PEOPLE 


not occupied three minutes from start to finish. As soon 
as this cowardly deed had been committed, the whole 
town took to its heels 1n terror, leaving only Elder Rich- 
ards, the hotel-keeper, and the bodies of the dead and 
wounded. 

Qn the following day the bodies of the dead Prophet 
and Patriarch were taken to the city of Nauvoo. They 
were met by thousands of sorrowing Saints. 
There was a public burial at the cemetery, 
out only bags of sand were placed in the 
graves. The real bodies were buried in the unfinished 
Nauvoo House at dead of night by a few men who, alone, 
knew the secret. In the fall of the year, however, it is 
said, they were taken up and interred in the rear of 
the house where the Prophet had lived. 

Thus Joseph Smith, the Prophet, laid down his life for 
the truth and for his followers, not only of his own day 
but of our day as well. He died to re-establish the truths 
by which all the boys and girls of to-day are to be saved 
in the kingdom of heaven. 


After the 
tragedy. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why is giving your life for others the final test of 
sincerity ? 

2. Name others, besides Joseph Smith, that have given their 
lives for the truth, or for others. 

3. In what way, other than giving one’s life, can one show 
sincerity ? 


CEPA BIE RS eXxolT 
SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE PROPHET 


Is there a man or a woman in your ward or town who 
was acquainted with the Prophet, or who ever saw him? 
If there is, talk to him or her, and find out how the 
Saints of Joseph’s day looked upon him. 

All through the events which we have thus far con- 
sidered, the Prophet Joseph Smith has been, we may al- 
most say, the leading character, to use the language of 
the stage. And so we know the principal incidents of his 
brief and eventful life. But now that we have followed 
these details till they have ended in his martyrdom, it 
may be well to pause for a moment in order to recall 
something about his chief traits of character. 

Those who knew the Prophet, speak of him as “a man 
of commanding appearance,’ a “fine-looking man,’ a 


Personal man who gave one the impression of “rug- 
pacman ged power.” He stood exactly six feet in 
Prophet. his stockings, we are told, weighed about 


two hundred pounds, was blue-eyed, with wavy, brown 
hair, and smooth face. His carriage was erect, graceful, 
and buoyant, full of physical energy and daring. There | 
was tremendous magnetism in his handclasp, as of one 
who is fond of people. 
There was nothing peculiar about his dress, as those 
expected to see who had only read about his claims to 
being a prophet. On one occasion, in 184, 
His dress. when he was visited by Josiah Quincy, he 
was “clad in the costume of a journeyman 
carpenter when about his work,” being dressed in 
“striped pantaloons, a linen jacket, which had not lately 


154 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


seen the washtub.” He had “a beard of some three days’ 
growth.” This was on a week-day. On Sunday he was 
dressed no better and no worse than scores of other men 
in Nauvoo. The Prophet was probably not even well-to- 
do, having paid little attention to making money. 

All his life he was very fond of athletics. “He loved 
to unbend and wrestle or jump with a friend. The men 

who could successfully contest with him 
Skill in were very few. He could stand and leap 
athletics. : : 

over a bar higher than his head.” Once, two 
ministers, whom he had overcome in debate, were greatly 
shocked at being invited-to “jump at a mark.” This, you 
must remember, was in a day when it was believed un- 
dignified for leaders of thought in the world to take 
exercise in sports. On another occasion, when a famous 
wrestler had overthrown a member of Joseph’s party, the 
Prophet called to Philemon C. Merrill to “get up and 
throw that man.” Merrill rose “filled with the strength 
of a Sampson,” and lifting both arms, told the fellow 
to take his choice of sides. 

“Now, Philemon,” said Joseph, “when I count three, 
throw him!” And Philemon did, pitching the man over 
his shoulder to the ground. 

We have many sayings of the Prophet as well as 
numerous incidents in his life that .go to show his un- 

, bounded affection. The ties that bound him 
Attitude : ; 
toward his to his father and mother and to his broth- 
fellows. ers and sisters were of the most enduring 
kind. Especially was he attached to his brother Hyrum, 
who was killed at the same time as himself. And he 
loved the whole “Mormon” people. Sometimes he used 
to say, “I love you all, but hate some of the things you 
do.” When the Saints were expelled from Jackson county, 


SIDED LIGHTS (ON: THE “PROPHET 155 


he wept. “Oh, my brethren, my brethren,” he wrote to 
them, “would that I had been with you to share your 
fate!” Not long before his death he said in a public meet- 
ing in Nauvoo, “As I grow older, my heart grows tenderer 
for you. I am at all times ready to give up everything 
that 1s wrong, for I wish this people to have a virtuous 
leader.” 

He was loyal to his friends, even when it might cost 
him dearly for his loyalty. When he with some others, 
his friends, were in jail during the expulsion from Mis- 
sourl, one of the guard made a rather “‘hard insinuation”’ 
against one of the brethren. This aroused the Prophet’s 
feelings, and he retorted in much the same way. “Your 
heart,” he said to the mobocrat, “is as black as your 
whiskers!’ And these were exceedingly black. Some of 
the brethren, feeling that this might excite the anger of 
the guard, expostulated with Joseph. “Do not be alarmed,” 
the Prophet replied, “I know what I am about.” Always 
it was this way, says one of the men who were with him 
on this occasion; he would take the part of the breth- 
ren “when their character was assailed, sooner than for 
himself, no matter how unpopular it was to speak in 
their favor.” 

Bold and impetuous by nature, he faced the greatest 
_danger without flinching. One time, also during the 

Missouri persecutions, one of the small 
His towns which the Saints were establishing 
courage. - 

was completely surrounded by an armed 
mob, who shot at any one and any thing that came from 
the place. They were endeavoring to starve the ‘“Mor- 
mons” here into complete submission. While this group 
of his people were in this plight, who should appear 
among them one morning suddenly but the Prophet! He 


156 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


must have taken his life in his hands when he undertook 
so perilous an adventure. But Joseph would have thought 
nothing of it. What he was thinking of was the distress 
of the people who were in this plight. 

Joseph Smith was a leader of men, In every group 
of persons anywhere there is a certain one of them to 

whom the others look for leadership. it 
A leader. does not need any one to designate him as 

such; he is accorded this place by natural 
right. It is true in the group of boys or girls to which 
you belong. The Prophet, aside from his religious call- 
ing, was such a man. 

To prove this it is only necessary to call the roll of the 
men by whom he was surrounded during the greater part 
of his mature life—Brigham Young, one of the strongest 
men of his generation; John Taylor, a man of independ- 
ence and courage considerably above the average and a 
former preacher; Sidney Rigdon, who had been a 
preacher of great influence and eloquence in the Church 
of the Disciples, which he helped to establish; Daniel H. 
Wells, who, although not a Latter-day Saint at the time 
of the Prophet’s death, respected and loved him; Lyman 
Wight, though not a man of high character was neverthe- 
less a man of strong individuality whom nobody could 
manage except the Prophet. These and many others who | 
could be named were all men of strong natures, each in 
his own way. But every one of them bent his will to 
that of Joseph Smith as to a natural leader. And it is 
hardly probable that men of this character would have 
subjected themselves to another merely because he claimed 
to be a prophet. There would have to be some striking 
personal magnetism in the one who could subdue their 
spirits and will in the way Joseph Smith did. 


SLO elGiht Se ONS Die PROBA ET 157 


The Prophet was a man of high spiritual gifts. He 
might be described as a natural seer, one who through 
inspiration “sees” deeper into things than 
ordinary men. Men differ from one. an- 
other in their natural endowments. This 
man, like Brigham Young, is a man of great practical 
affairs; that one, like Orson Pratt, is a man of thouglit 
and books; while still another, like Wilford Woodruff, is 
a born missionary. Joseph Smith was a born seer. He 
’ divined things and events. ; 

While Joseph and Oliver were at Harmony translat- 
ing the Record, David Whitmer, as we have already seen, 
came to them. He was met by the two on the outskirts 
of the village. Joseph had told Oliver when David had 
started from home, where he had stopped the first night, 
how he had read the sign at the tavern, where he had 
stopped the second night, and that he would reach Har- 
mony on a certain day before dinner—all of which David 
informed Oliver was exactly as it happened. On other 
occasions the Prophet showed a similar power of un- 
usual seership, which developed in him as he used the 
e1ft. 

The fine qualities of Joseph Smith and the wonderful 
work he did in his short life all go to testify to his di- 
vine mission as a prophet of the Lord in the nineteenth 
century. 


His spiritual 
gifts. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What qualities do you think are necessary in a young 
man to-day? 

2. What qualities do you think essential in a young woman 
to-day? ‘t. 

3. Enumerate the characteristics given in the lesson as pos- 
sessed by the Prophet. 

4. How may one acquire such qualities as are essential in 
well-rounded character? 


CHAPTER XXIII 


SWIFTLY FLEETING DAYS 


Have you ever suffered a great loss—the death of a 
relative or a very dear friend? How lonely you felt for 
a time! How you missed the loved one! How you 
longed for a word from the one you lost! This is how 
the Saints felt when the Prophet died. , 


After the death of Joseph, two problems confronted the 

Saints in Nauvoo—Who was to take the place of the 

martyred president at the head of the 

Two Church? and how should the feelings of 
problems. : 

bitterness between the “Mormons” and the 

non-“Mormons” in Hancock county be toned down to a 
point where they could live together in peace? 

No greater shock could have come to the Saints than 
the death of their beloved leader. For fourteen years he 
had acted as God’s spokesman to them, and they had fol- 
lowed him as trustingly as a little child looks up to its 
father for guidance in a strange situation. And now, 
all of a sudden, he had been snatched from them by the 
black hand of murder, while he was in his young man- 
hood and when they had least expected anything like this 
to happen. It would take them a long time to recover 
from the blow. 

There were other men, to be sure, whom they had con- 
fidence in—the quorum of apostles. But these were, most 
of them, away on missons, although they had been called 
home by the Prophet shortly before the dark tragedy that 
_ ended in his death. Of the apostles, only Elders Taylor 


SWIMLLYSEPLEETING: DAYS 159 


and Richards were in the city at the time, and Elder 
Taylor lay wounded. Those not being the days of the 
telephone and the telegraph and the fast locomotive, it 
was some time before all the members of this body re- 
turned, and when they did so it was singly or in twos. 

There were some strong men in this quorum, men who 
received and deserved the confidence of the people. At 

the head stood Brigham Young, who had 
The apostles. been a staunch defender of the Prophet and 

the Church almost from the very beginning 
and who had been active in promoting the cause of ‘‘Mor- 
monism” at home and abroad at great sacrifice. More- 
over, it was he that had led the exodus from the State 
of Missouri to Illinois. Other tried and faithful men in 
the quorum were: Heber C. Kimball, Parley P. Pratt, 
Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, George 
A. Smith, and Willard Richards. AIl these men later 
became well known workers in the Utah period of the 
Church. Not only were they dependable, but they were 
men of superior intelligence and force of character, men 
who in any condition of life would be leaders worthy of 
absolute confidence. 

Till the apostles returned to the city there was some 
uncertainty in the minds of many of the people in Nauvou 
as to who would lead the Church; for a number of men 
were endeavoring to lead the Saints astray on the point. 
It was entirely unnecessary, however, for any one to be 
in doubt in the matter, for the revelation to the Prophet 
on the general subject had made the point perfectly clear. 
And the instructions of Joseph to the apostles had made 
it as clear as the revelation. All doubt in the minds of 
the greater number of the Saints was dispelled at a public 
meeting as soon as the Apostles came home. 


160 WUR. CHURCH AND -PEOPEE 


The law of succession in the presidency of the Church 
is this, in brief: Over the whole Church are three quo- 
rums, or councils—the First Presidency of 
three, the council of Twelve Apostles, and 
the first council of Seventy presided over 
by the seven presidents of seventy. Where all three of 
these councils are in operation, the seventies will act under 
the direction of the apostles, and the apostles under the 
direction of the First Presidency. But all of them are 
equal in authority. Now, when the presidency is dis- 
solved by any cause, then the council of apostles becomes 
the presiding authority in the Church. That is clear on 
its face. For the counselors to the president are not coun- 
selors when there is no president. 

This was exactly the situation in 1844. Joseph Smith, 
the first president of the Church, was dead. The First 
Presidency of the Church was therefore disorganized. 
And so the next council in authority, which was the 
council of apostles, became the head of the Church. The 
authority to re-organize the First Presidency reposed in 
that council. | 

This arrangement was the very same which our Lord 
made when he was here in the flesh. He told the Twelve 
that it was his Father’s good pleasure to give them the 
kingdom. Shortly before his death he said to the Twelve, 
“T appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath ap- 
pointed unto me;” and again, in his prayer, after the last 
passover, he said, “As thou hast sent me into the world, 
even so have I also sent them into the world.” He com- 
mitted the kingdom with its duties and responsibilities to 
their care. They were to administer it after his depart- 
ure. Even so, in our day, he has provided that the leader- 
ship of the affairs of the kingdom should devolve on 


The law of 
succession, 


SWIFTLY FLEETING DAYS 161 


the Twelve, in the case of the removal, by one cause or 
another, of the prophet. 
All this was made clear, as we stated, at a meeting of 
the Saints in Nauvoo, held August the eighth. It had 
been called for the purpose of deciding this 
edt gaa very question. It has been declared by 
rag many persons present at this meeting that 
when Brigham Young laid this matter before the con- 
eregation, he took on to them not only the appearance of 
the Prophet Joseph Smith but also his very voice. So 
that this miracle—for such it seemed—removed the last 
lingering vestige of doubt as to where the real authority 
to lead the Church lay. About three years later, the 
apostles, acting as head of the Church, appointed Brig- 
ham Young as president of the Church, with Heber C. 
Kimball and Willard Richards as first and second coun- 
selors respectively. 
The second problem—the relations between the Saints 
and their neighbors in the county—was harder to settle. 
After the murder of the Prophet, Governor Ford, fear- 
ing an uprising in Hancock county, asked the Saints to 
support him in enforcing the law. They 
oss promptly responded that they would do 
Bea: their utmost to uphold him and the law. The 
same request was made of the non-““Mormon” population 
in the county. The citizens of Warsaw replied that they 
would not sustain the governor where the “Mormons” 
were concerned, suggesting that either they or the Saints 
must leave the State. 
It happened that nine men had been arrested and tried 
for the murders at Carthage. The feelings against the 
“Mormons,” however, were so great that, as anyone could 


easily have guessed, the men were found “not guilty” by 
1 


162 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


the packed jury. This encouraged those who were against 
the Saints in the county. Everything, therefore, pointed 
to another expulsion of the “Mormons” if they did not 
leave the State voluntarily. Even the governor suggested 
to the Saints that they had better leave for the sake of 
peace. So, as public sentiment increased against them, 
they began to arrange their affairs with a view to a gen- 
eral exodus, 
The last days of Nauvoo were, therefore, days of 
anxitey, of tremendous activity. Committees were moy- 
ing about disposing of property, the pro- 
eee ceeds of which were immediately turned in- 
‘to wagons, working animals, and provisions 
for a journey somewhere, few knew where. Blacksmiths, 
carpenters, joiners, wheelwrights, were busy all the day 
long making and repairing vehicles. The sound of ham- 
mer and anvil could be heard far into the night. Every- 
thing, except work on the temple, was dropped in the 
preparation for the exodus. With all this hurry to leave, 
on the part of the Saints, certain groups in the county 
were highly impatient for them to go—which only in- 
creased the desire of the people in Nauvoo to hasten lest 
mob violence occur. 
In February of the year 1846, therefore, a company of 
five hundred persons, including the apostles, crossed the 
Mississippi river and were soon lost on the 
The exodus, plains of Iowa. From this time on, the 
Saints continued to cross the great stream 
to join those already gone, till by the latter part of April, 
Nauvoo had but a comparatively few left, and these were 
mainly the poor, the aged, and the sick—those who were 
least able to help themselves. These were called “the 
remnants.’’ Mobs, however, were so eager to possess the 


Sven reie vee tik Unb IN Go Dey 163 


property of the “Mormon’”’ people in Nauvoo and vicinity 
that they could not wait till these helpless ones were 
moved. They drove them out of the city and across the 
river into Iowa, at the same time desecrating the temple 
and other places sacred to the Saints. A preacher, ascend- 
ing the top-most tower of the temple, shouted, “Peace 
to the inhabitants of the earth, now the ‘Mormons’ are 
driven out!” 

So Nauvoo the Beautiful was forsaken by its thrifty 
and peace-loving inhabitants, stripped of its loveliness. 
From a disease-engendering marsh, in the 
midst of a country “marred, without being 
improved, by careless, idle, settlers,” it had 
grown under the hands of an industrious and enterprising 
people into the metropolis and commercial center of Il- 
linois. It had always been filled with a lively, bustling 
population, waking the echoes with the sound of in- 
dustry. But all this was now gone. Not a sound now 
disturbed the stillness; the din of business was no longer 
to be heard in the streets; no dog barked an alarm to the 
wayfarer; no stranger paced its silent walks. The grain 
lay rotting in the adjacent fields, and the railings that 
enclosed them had been rudely torn from their places to 
furnish fuel for a savage barbecue to a mob. It was in- 
deed a City of the Dead. 

But, although the Saints were leaving behind them their 
beautiful city, the fruits of their thought and toil, they 
were not leaving with it the power by which they had 
been enabled to build up such a wonderful testimony of 
their industry and intelligence. [Tor God was still with 
them in his power and wisdom. He had established his 
Church, never again to be thrown down nor given to 
another people, and no matter how dark things might 


Nauvoo after 
the exodus. 


164 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


appear without, He was still by their side with the light 
which outlines the path ahead. He knew where their 
destiny lay, and would guide them there in POwGE and 
safety. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why cannot people live together in peace, where they do. 

2. Why do you think the Saints and the non-“Mormons”’ in 
the county where Nauvoo was, could not agree? 

3. What concessions do you think one ought to make in order 
to live at peace with others? 


And then there is a period when the blade that was 
tender has gradually acquired strength to stand up under 
its own growing weight; when the ear has filled with 
ripened corn and wheat and oats, which will presently be 
ready for the reaper and the thresher and the grist mill; 
and when it shall provide the nourishment necessary for 
men to do their work in the world. 

And there is also the period of the growing and the 
maturing crop in the history of Our Church—a period 
when the truths planted in the earlier time have become 
established in the hearts of a sufficient number to insure 
their permanence on the earth. It is the period when 
the truths revealed in the first years of the Church are 
a source of increasing strength to thousands and tens of 
thousands of Saints in the Great West and in all the 
world. 


CHAP TE Rawal y 
COVERED WAGONS 


Very likely there are some aged men and women in 
your community who have been there from the begin- 
ning. Talk to one or more of them. Ask them to tell 
you some of their early experiences. It will help you to 
appreciate what you are to read in this book from now on. 


What had become of those thousands of Latter-day 
Saints who had occupied pleasant homes in the magic city 
of Nauvoo on the banks of the great Father of Waters 
and on the rich farm lands stretching eastward ? 

Among these refugees was a young man named Whip- 
ple, Nelson W. Whipple. At this time he was twenty- 
eight years old. Since he kept a journal in 
which he recorded in great detail the hap- 
penings of this memorable trek as they were 
experienced by the average man, and since no part of 
this journal has ever before been published, we shall fol- 
low his record in the main in this chapter, sketching in 
wherever necessary other details of the migration of the 
Saints between the Mississippi and the Missouri, so as 
to give as complete a picture as may be to the eyes of 
the imagination. 


Nelson W. 
Whipple. 


Brother Whipple was one of the first to crus» the 
river. His wife—he had no children at the time—re- 
mained in Nauvoo till a more favorable occasion, as her 
husband believed, for her removal. But when he got word 
from her that she had been “ordered to leave the house 
she lived in,” which he had bought and paid for, he went 


COVERED WAGONS 167 


to bring her. Already, however, she had crossed the river 
and was at a friend’s on the west bank. The two re- 
crossed the stream “on the ice, which had stopped in the 
strong current and frozen together, covering perhaps one- 
third of the surface,” and on which they wound their 
way, going from one to another of these projections, till 
they found themselves on the opposite shore. The river 
is here a mile wide. Going to their former home, they 
packed in “a box three feet long and sixteen inches deep” 
their “best clothes, some books, dishes, and a few tools,” 
they tied up in four bed-quilts some cooking utensils, con- 
sisting of “a frying-pan, a tea-kettle, and a dish-kettle,” 
and these they towed to the river “in a hand sled bor- 
towed from a boy.” A friend, who was also leaving the 
city for good, took them back over the river in his 
sleigh. 

Like all but a. few in that moving multitude he had 
no idea where he was going. He knew that the Mississippi 
river marked the extreme western boundary 
of the United States, so far as its popula- 
tion was concerned. He knew that there 
was “a peaceful, sleepy population” on the Pacific coast 
in California, where Spanish priests were endeavoring to 
instill into the unopen minds of the Mexicans and Amer- 
ican Indians there, Christian standards of thought and 
work, and that there were the beginnings of settlements in 
the silent territory of “the continuous woods, where rolls 
the Oregon,” of which the poet Bryant spoke a little 
earlier than this. 

But he knew also that west of the Mississippi lay the 
great American Desert, that west of the American Desert 
towered the Rocky Mountains, and that beyond these 
were some more desert, some more forests, and then the 


The great 
West. 


168 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


sea. He knew, too, that from Independence, Missouri, 
the Oregon Trail, made originally by the foot of the red 
man and deepened by the foot of the buffalo, threaded 
the flowered prairies of Iowa, the shifting sands of the 
desert, and the timbered gorges of the mountains, past 
the famous landmarks of Chimney Rock, Fort Laramie, 
Independence Rock, Sweetwater, Devil’s Gate and Fort 
Bridger, and over the hills to the ocean—a truly wonder- 
ful trail, the longest in history. And he knew, finally, 
that in all this vast, silent country the echoes were awak- 
ened. only by the voice of the trapper in quest of fur, 
the war cry of the skulking red man, the yelp of the wolf 
and the coyote, and the bellow of the innumerable bison 
of the plains. 

‘Into the great desert country, peopled by wild men 

and wild animals, he was ready to risk his future, led by 
men whom he trusted, and feeling safer there than in the 
midst of the “civilized” creatures who had murdered his 
leaders and who would as lief kill him and his fellow 
“Mormons” as they would an Indian, or even a dog. 
» Leaving the west bank of the Mississippi, this first 
company, in which were Brigham Young and most of 
the apostles, moved to Sugar Creek, nine miles away, 
camping in a grove. It had snowed just before. Brush- 
ing away this white covering, they pitched their tents. 
That night, with a falling thermometer, nine babies were 
born. 

Brother Whipple found himself presently in a group 
of ten persons, organized into a company with a captain. 
Every five groups of this kind had a “cap- 
tain of fifty” to whom the “captains of ten” 
were responsible. Two companies of fifty, 
again, were grouped under a “captain of hundreds,” to 


Organiza- 
tion. 


COVERED WAGONS 169 


whom, in turn, each captain of fifty looked for leader- 
ship. Last of all, the whole “Camp of Israel,” as the 
migrating Saints were called, was divided into two 
groups, under Heber C. Kimball and Brigham Young, 
who also was commander of the entire movement. Thus 
the people were organized in a special and effective way 
for this emergency. “We will have no laws we cannot 
keep,’ said President Young before leaving Sugar Creek 
as he stood in his wagon surrounded by the men of the 
company, “but we will have order in the camp. If any 
want to have peace when we HEN left this place, they 
must toe the mark.” 
The earlier days of the journey were distressing in the 
extreme. Snow lay on the unfrozen earth to the depth 
of six or eight inches. At the camping 
Hardships. grounds, after the men and animals had 
been -there for a time, the place, .as the 
journal says, became a veritable “slush of snow and mud, 
with nowhere to sit or lie but in water and snow.” The 
first night out a neighbor gave Sister Whipple an invi- 
tation “to lie on some corn stalks,’ which she eagerly 
accepted. The husband lay with a Father Williams “on 
a single blanket on the snow,” which, when they awoke 
in the night, they found had “frozen to their sides,” the 
weather having turned bitterly cold, so that they were 
compelled to sit up before the fire till dawn. At another 
camp, later than this, where they stayed a week, it 
rained the whole time. | 
Presently “the snow had all gone, and the ground was 
nearly covered with water.” Then it was that the wagons, 
many of them, broke down or got stuck in the mud, 
necessitating a doubling up of teams. For there were no 
roads whatever, the way the Saints took; they did not 


170 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


follow the Oregon Trail. At one time it took three yoke 
of oxen to pull five hundred pounds. Often women and 
children, as well as men, had to walk through the mud 
and slush. Occasionally the fierce winds tore the canvas 
of their tents and wagon covers to shreds. The time of 
spring rains and freshets over, though, the journey be- 
came less unpleasant. 


Obtaining food for man and beast in this wilderness 
was a problem. In order to undertake this trek it was 
required that each family of five should 
Food. have one wagon, three yoke of oxen or 
teams, two cows, two beef cattle, three 
sheep, one thousand pounds of flour, twenty-four pounds 
of sugar, a tent and bedding, seeds, farm tools, and a 
rifle—about two hundred dollars’ worth in all. But 
many did not have this outfit, especially the food. In- 
deed, one time eight hundred men, heads of families, re- 
ported that they did not have even two weeks’ provisions 
on hand. 


For three weeks, Brother Whipple’s company lived on 
boiled corn alone. When, on one occasion some persons 
from another company gave them a little flour and bacon, 
they considered it “quite a treat.” Once, having a rifle 
and knowing how to use it, Elder Whipple ventured out 
and brought home five fox squirrels and two pheasants, 
which, when cooked, the captain enjoyed with him and his 
wife, although it was against the rules for any one ex- 
cept the appointed huntsmen to kill game. Another time 
he received some venison in return for the use of his 
gun, which a man borrowed and with which the latter 


had killed a deer. 


When the company reached the Grand river, at a point 


COVERED WAGONS 171 


where there was a large grove of tall oak timber with- 
out underbrush and where it was decided to 
An Incident. make a settlement, an incident happened 
that throws into sight several things about 
this wonderful exodus. Brother Whipple and another 
man in the company—Ammon Davis—thought they 
would like to split the first rails for a fence. They did 
so. Being soon exhausted they sat down on a log for a 
breath or two. Brother Davis remarked on the apparent 
weak condition of his friend. Whereupon Brother 
Whipple, who was a quiet, uncomplaining man, confided 
to him that he had had almost nothing to eat for three 
days. Brother Davis told President Young about it. 
The President immediately hunted up Elder Whipple 
and mildly scolded him for not telling him the situation. 
“T told him,” says the journal, “that I thought he had 
plenty to feed without me, at which he said, ‘I have 
plenty now, and when that is gone I know I shall get 
more. He said he loved to feed those who would work 
and do the best they could. ‘Come with me,’ said he, 
‘and you can have enough of such as I have.’ I gota 
sack, as he had told me, and went with him, and got it full 
of sea-biscuits. He told me when this was gone to come 
and get more.” 





If the company stayed at a given place for any con- 
siderable length of time, men would be sent over the 
line into Missouri to look for work. On 

The stops. one such occasion Brother Whipple says 
that he with others “husked corn on shares 

to feed ourselves and horses.” They also “built a house,” 
receiving for pay “some corn and pork and beans.” This 
sort of thing became common as the journey progressed. 
Until the grass began to grow, the only food that was 


172 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


obtainable for the animals was a little, a very little, corn, 
and the buds and branches and the bark of trees. 

The immediate destination of the “Camp of Israel” 
was Council Bluffs on the Missouri river, some four 

hundred miles from Nauvoo. It was not 
een till the fifteenth of June, three and a half 
months after leaving Sugar Creek, that the 
first wagons reached the first objective. Between these 
two dates about three thousand seven hundred covered 
wagons stretched back over the trail. However com- 
mon-place, even painful, the details of that journey may 
have been, from the distance, whether in time or space, 
it must have been a stirring sight—this long train of 
vehicles winding its lumbering way through the heaving 
country of Iowa, through groves of trees and over swollen 
streams ! 

This migration of a whole people has great significance 
to the boys and girls of to-day. It opened the way to the 
great West with its boundless opportunities and its spirit 
of freedom and progress. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Think of some principle which you cherish very highly. 

2. What principle, or principles, did the Saints cherish highly, 
who came West with Brigham Young? 

3. What sacrifices were they willing to make for their con- 
victions ? 

4. Have you been called upon to make any sacrifice for a 
conviction? If so, what? Are there any calls for such sacrifice 
to-day ? 


CS CUAUE bbe x 
IN THE WILDERNESS 


Do you know where the city of Omaha is? In your 
study of geography you no doubt have read of it. Just 
outside of Omaha is a town named Florence. 
It is a small town, but has a large cemetery. 
In that cemetery are buried many Latter- 
day Saints, who were unable to endure the hardships of 
the exodus from Nauvoo. 


Camping on 
the Missouri. 


Council Bluffs, on the Missouri river, as we have 
said, was the immediate destination of the “Camp of 
Israel” when it left the Mississippi. The final destina- 
tion, however, was a point farther on, of which we shall 
speak presently. But since it was toward the middle of 
June before this first objective was reached and since 
the removal of so great a body was.a work that required 
both time and large preparation, it was thought best not 
to attempt a joyirney into the Unknown till another sea- 
son. Besides, a call made by the Federal government 
for a volunteer battalion from among the “Mormons” to 
fight in the Mexican war, which would require many of 
the best men in the Camp, made it even more urgent 
‘for the Saints not to leave the Missouri river till the 
next spring. So fifteen thousand people camped at vari- 
ous places on the prairies of Iowa. : 

The first of these settlements of importance was Garden 
Grove. As already suggested, this place was so named 

because it was covered with tall oak trees, 
Garden with no underbrush to speak of, and sur- 

Grove. . 
- rounded on all sides as far as the eye could 


174 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


reach by a profusion of wild onions. It was the last 
days of April when the first company arrived at the grove, 
one hundred fifty miles out from Nauvoo. 
During the seventeen days the company remained here 
a hundred fifty-nine men were set to work cutting down 
and trimming trees for logs and fence rails, building 
fences and houses, plowing and planting, and digging 
wells. In this way several hundred acres of land were 
enclosed and planted in crops for others to reap the 
benefit of. Then the company moved on, leaving only 
a few to guard the place and care for it. 
Meantime, Parley P. Pratt had been sent ahead along 
the intended route to look over the country and select 
another place for settlement. About thirty- 
sia five miles from Garden ‘Grove, as he tells 
j us, he came upon “some round and sloping 
hills, grassy and crowned with beautiful groves of timber,” 
resembling “fan English park.” This he called on the 
spot, Mount Pisgah, after a mountain from one of 
whose peaks Moses viewed the ancient Promised Land. 
Here, when the company arrived, men were set to work 
duplicating the tasks they had performed at Garden 
Grove. More than a thousand acres were put under cul- 
tivation at this place for the benefit of those who were to 
come later. After placing some men in charge, Presi- 
dent Young led his company on toward the Missouri. 
The next settlement of importance was Kanesville, 
named in honor of Col. Thomas L. Kane, a friend of the 
“Mormons” during this period. At first it 
Kanesville, Was called Council Bluffs. It was situated 
at the mouth of a small valley, or canyon, 
overlooking the three-mile bottom to the Missouri. For 
a number of years it was the principal settkement of the 


IN‘ THE WILDERNESS 175 


Saints east of the river. Here and there, up and down 
the river for fifteen miles, wherever there was a spring 
of water with a clump of trees, might be seen in those 
days companies of “Mormons,” numbering each fifty 
families. 
That was a life of great privation and hardship which 
the Saints lived in those days of the Iowa prairies. 
Their dwelling houses were crude and inconvenient in 
the extreme for a people who had been accustomed to the 
necessities and comforts of civilized life. 


Life in pr K 
these Some of these were mere “dugouts,” squares 
places. or oblongs dug out of the side of a hill and 


covered with poles and brush and earth. But these ‘had 
to be abandoned when they proved so damp as to be un- 
healthful. Most of the houses, however, were the cus- 
tomary log house, built generally of unhewn logs, chinked 
and plastered between them, and roofed with clapboards 
covered with earth. Brother Whipple, a pioneer builder, 
makes a great merit out of the fact that he erected a 
house with a roof that did not leak! The chimney, which 
often smoked every one out of the house when the wind 
blew was usually made of sod cut by the spade into 
bricks, and the fire place and the hearth of pounded clay. 
In spite of the fact that hundreds of acres of land were 
cultivated, food was not too plentiful, and at times it 
was even scarce. Many men continued to 

needa: find it necessary to leave the settlements and 
obtain work in the non-“Mormon” towns in 

eastern Iowa and Missouri, some going as far as Wis- 
consin and Michigan for employment. Wheat, buck- 
wheat, corn, and potatoes were the principal crops 
raised, together with garden vegetables. Various kinds 
of nuts and berries grew in wild abundance along the 


176 OUR- CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


river—hazel and hickory nuts, black and white walnuts, 
plums, raspberries, and elderberries. “By these supplies,” 
says the wife of one of the apostles, “we were better 
furnished than we had been since leaving our homes.” 
And Eider \Whipple says, speaking of the winter of 1848 
on the Plains: “Although our food was not of the most 
delicate, we had plenty of it. It consisted mostly of corn 
bread and bean porridge, or pottage. The corn we had to 
erind by hand in a little mill. This was rather tedious, 
but we had little else to do, except go to meetings, parties, 
visit our friends, and so on.” Apostle Hyde tells us that 
during the winter of 1848-9—-which was the severest ever 
known there, when fifty-two inches of snow fell between 
October and March—they “had their hands full to keep 
body and soul together among the poor.” 
In those days, whoever showed any inventive talent 
was encouaged to develop it. Brother Whipple speaks 
of picking up a new trade—two new trades, 
Makeshifts. in fact—tunder these conditions. “Being 
destitute of a pail or bucket,” he says, “and 
having to fetch all our water some distance in a jug, I 
found it necessary to try a new trade that I never thought 
of doing before. That was coopering. I picked up some 
bits of pine boards some one had sawed off their wagon 
box, and made a bucket. This gave me the trade, and 
everybody came to get churns, tubs, buckets, and pigeon 
keelers. So I followed this mostly as a business through 
the summer, while I shook with the ague and grunted 
with the fever every day till fall.’ Elsewhere in his 
journal he speaks of taking up gun-smithing in an emer- 
gency, also the making of chairs, spinning wheels, and 
other things. Some of the articles, he tells us, he sold at 
the stores in Kanesville for ‘‘store pay,” the “first we 


IN THE WILDERNESS 177 


had since leaving Nauvoo.” Chairs he made for the trade 
across the state line, selling them for fifty cents apiece, 
half of this amount going to the one who sold them, as 
commission. This man also was an expert maker of cof- 
fins—at least he became so during his stay on the prairies 
there. “I made all the coffins for those who died at 
Garden Grove,” he says, “and buried the dead. These | 
made out of black walnut, split out and hewed down to 
an inch thick, and planed up—which made a very nice 
coffin, but took much hard labor.” 


Indeed, coffins were much in demand at times in all 
the settlements, there was so much sickness with many 
deaths. The long exposure to which all the 
Burials. people, especially those who undertook the 
earlier trips, were subjected had weakened 
the constitution to a point where there was little or no 
resistance to disease. The fever and ague, black scurvy, 
and other diseases of which less was known, were com- 
mon. Malaria swept many into untimely graves at Coun- 
cil Bluffs and vicinity. At Winter Quarters, as many as 
six hundred burials took place before cold weather set 
in. Many at this time were buried in an old Indian 
mound, which had been reopened for the purpose. 


It was under these circumstances that the President of 
the United States called upon the Saints to raise five 
The hundred men for the Mexican war. A hard 
“Mormon” thing it was, but the “Mormons” responded 
Battalion. in a patriotic spirit.. This group of soldiers 
is known as the “Mormon Battalion.” The people gave 
them a “sendoff’—a program and a dance. President 
Young gave them his. blessing with some advice for the 


men to remember their prayers, keep clean, and be loyal 
12 


178 OUR-GHURCH AND (PEOPLE 


to their country and God. And they marched away to the 
tune of “The Girl I Left Behind,” played by the band. 

It was a hard journey they had to the Coast. Half 
starved and half naked, they walked the whole distance 
over a wild country. “Bonaparte crossed the Alps,” said 
General Kearney, “But these men have crossed a con- 
tinent!’’ Without having to fight, they were mustered 
out of service in California, part of them returning to 
Salt Lake valley but most of them to the settlements on 
the Missouri, where they were given a warm reception. 

To make up for this loss and their sickness and priva- 
tion the Saints tried to dull the edge of their sorrow by 
various amusements. Always they took “the young and 
hopeful side” of everything. They held parties at one 
another’s houses. It might be that the floor would be 
carpeted for the occasion with straw, sheets hung over 
the walls, and turnips with candles in them nailed up to 
furnish light. One winter there was a dancing school, 
which was largely attended by “an agreeable and good- 
natured set.” One of the most interesting things in these 
settlements was Pitt’s brass band, which discoursed the 
classics as well as the latest music on those great silent 
prairies. 

Then there were schools and meetings to help divert 
the mind. Always care was taken to educate the chil- 

dren. Also they built a log tabernacle at 
Diversions. Kanesville, where general conferences and 

other meetings were held. Here, in Decem- 
ber, 1847, the First Presidency of the Church was re- 
organized, with Brigham Young as President, and Heber 
C. Kimball and Willard Richards as Counselors. <A peri- 
odical, ““The Frontier Guardian,” was established under 
the management of Apostle Orson Hyde. 


IN THE WILDERNESS 179 


These wayside stations of the “Mormons” existed for 
a period of about six years—from the spring of 1846 to 
the autumn of 1852. Gradually during these years, as 
we shall see in the next chapter, companies of Saints 
pulled lumberingly out in covered wagons over the moun- 
tains to the Inland Sea. 

Thus the Saints in that early time suffered, and some 
died and were buried in that cemetery in Florence, that 
they might make greater opportunities for those of us 
who are happily living in the valleys of the western 
mountains. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why did the Saints stop on the prairie and make settle- 
ments instead of going on to their final destination? 

2. What different characteristics can you pick out in the 
“Mormon” people as you find them “in thle wilderness ?” 

3. In what respects do you think the life they led here dif- 
fered from that to which they had been accustomed ? 


CUA PER MX AVL 
“THE LONG, LONG TRAIL” 


No doubt you have seen a twenty-fourth of July 
parade. Its reproduction of pioneer days is as complete 
as can be made after the lapse of seventy-five years and 
more—sagebrush, trappers, men and women in homespun, 
crude farm tools, spinning wheels, and many other char- 
acteristics of the days we must never allow ourselves to 
forget. | 


Every summer during the next few years after the 
first camp of the migrating Saints on the Missouri river— 
from the time the cottonwood shot out its 
bloom and the willow and the slippery elm 
their new leaf till Jack Frost covered the 
creeks and the rivers with ice and snow,—you might see 
an almost continuous train of covered wagons jerking and 
hitching their way across the thousand miles and more of 
the long trail, longer than we shall ever know, between 
the Missouri Bottoms and the Valley of the Great Salt 
Sea, hidden away in the very tops of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. And what a trail that was! Americans, certainly 
Western Americans, and most of all the Latter-day Saints, 
ought never to forget what hardship and sacrifice and 
suffering and even death it cost to lay bare to the eyes 
of the world the beauty and fruitfulness of Utah. 


The first company to leave was the Pioneers. It 
consisted of one hundred thirty-nine men, three women, 


Remember 
the Trail. 


[rel], suo’ ‘sSuo7yT ay} uo sis9u0Ig 


oS 
se 


os 


inte 
a 





~~ 





“THE ,LONG, LONG TRAIL” 183 


and two children, at the start, with the 
The necessary “fit-outs,’ as they said in those 
Pioneers, : 

days. Their task was to scout the way 
“over the mountains,” to find a place big enough and safe 
enough to hold the “Mormon” people, and to plant crops 
when they got there so that they and those who followed 
them might not starve. Although not one of the com- 
pany had ever been over the route, there is little doubt 
that at least their leader knew where they were going. 

Leaving Elkhorn in the middle of April, the company 

followed for hundreds of miles the wanderings of the 

North Platte, through Nebraska and Wyo- 
Their trail, ming, keeping on the north side of this 

stream in order to avoid as much as possible 
any contact with their old-time enemies, the Missourians, 
who might be on their way to Oregon; thence touching 
Fort Laramie, an old trading post, Red Buttes, Inde- 
pendence Rock, Devil’s Gate, Little and Big Sandy, and 
Fort Bridger, into Echo Canyon and through Emigra- 
tion Canyon into the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Their 
trail for many a mile is now marked by the line of the 
Union Pacific railroad. 


At different times they met Charles Beaumont, Moses 
Harris, and James Bridger, trappers and traders, of whom 
they obtained information regarding the 

See country ahead. Harris and Bridger drew 
’ dark pictures of Salt Lake valley, the latter 

being willing, he said, to give one thousand dollars for the 
first ear of corn raised there, though they spoke very 
highly of a valley northward called Cache. Whether this 
statement of Bridger’s about “corn” is to be taken literally 
or figuratively, or whether it was merely an off-hand re- 
mark, may not now be determined. In any event, it 


184 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


betokens the extreme dryness of the place for which the 
Saints were headed—which is the main thing. When the 
Pioneers reached the vicinity of the Black Hills, their 
supply of provisions threatened to give out, but some 
Missourian emigrants on their way to the Oregon country 
renewed it in exchange for the use of the ferry over the 
Platte at this point. 

Toward the end of the journey the company became di- 

vided. The vanguard was headed by Apostle Orson 

Pratt, making the first impressions of a 
Enter the wagon road on the unmarked country. The 
Valley : : 

last company included President Young, 
who was suffering from mountain fever. The Pioneers, 
therefore, entered the valley at different times. Orson 
Pratt’s party was the first, descending on the twenty- 
second of July and the President’s on the twenty-fourth. 
On the day before this last date, President Young re- 
quested that the wagon in which he was riding be turned 
so that he could view the valley of the Salt Lake. After 
looking at it for sometime, he said: ““This is the place. 
Drive on!” 

After this the flow of immigration from the East was 
almost continuous during the summer months. A second 
company, numbering two thousand persons, 
came here about two months later. Already 
the population of the new home had been 
increased by a detachment of the returning Battalion. 
During the following year, several large companies en- 
tered the Valley—one under President Young, who had 
returned to the Missouri, numbering twelve hundred, an- 
other under President Kimball numbering seven hundred, 
and still another of five hundred under President Rich- 
ards. Other large companies came in the immediate years 


Later 
immigration. 





Pioneers Crossing a Stream 


“THE LONG, LONG TRAIL” 187 


following. Immigration was greatly increased when the 
Perpetual Emigration Fund was organized, money from 
which was lent to the needy Saints on the frontier and in 
England. Many thousands came from the “Old Coun- 
try,” “in their degree the pick and flower of England,” 
as the novelist Dickens called them. 

The saddest of all these moving thousands were the 
Handcart Companies of 1856. In order to reduce the 
expense of “crossing the Plains’ the idea 
of push carts was put into operation among 
the Saints. It was popular in England. 
Five companies in all left the settlements on the Missouri 
river—three in June, one in July, and one in August. The 
first three groups reached Salt Lake in good time, hav- 
ing walked the entire distance of more than a thousand 
miles, most of them pushing or pulling loaded handcarts. 
But the other two companies, those that left the river 
late in the summer, were caught in the early snows of 
that year. Women and men alike were compelled to wade 
the streams in the bitter cold. Their food gave out, too. 
Many died on the way. The suffering of these people is 
utterly beyond imagination. 


Handcart 
company. 


Every company of emigrants was thoroughly organized, 
with captains of tens, fifties, and hundreds. Camp rules 
' Organization were strict. In the morning the bugie 
of the |, roused the sleepers to breakfast and prayers, 
companies of 
pioneers. so as to start promptly at seven o’clock. One 
hour was given to noon. Often the wagons traveled two- 
abreast for better protection against Indian attacks. All 
the vehicles of a given company, for the same reason, 
kept close together. No one was allowed to leave camp 
without permission. Guns and pistols must be kept al- 
ways in perfect condition, ready for immediate service. 


188 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


At night the wagons drew up in a circle, or if the halt 
was on the banks of the river, in a half-circle, with the 
wheels interlocked. This made a safe retreat for man 
and beast in case of danger and a corral for the animals. 
At night the bugle sounded again at half past eight, as 
a signal for every one to be in bed by nine, except of 
course the guards. Then, all through the night, you 
might have heard the watchman shouting, ‘““Twelve o’clock 
[or whatever the hour might be], and all is well!” 

There were many unpleasant features connected with 
this great trek. Clouds of mosquitoes, at certain seasons 
and in certain places, settled down upon the 
camp, to the discomfort of people and ani- 
mals alike, requiring the plentiful use of the 
“smudge.” Meat and fuel were sometimes hard to get. 
In spots the buffalo, the antelope, and wild fowls were 
plentiful enough. On occasions the rain poured down in 
torrents till everything and everybody was soaked, when 
the camp would be delayed to “dry out.’ Moreover 
wagons were forever breaking down, work animals would 
die, and then an unbroken cow or heifer would have to 
be yoked up with an ox or harnessed with a horse or 
mule. Maybe the Indians would suddenly pounce upon 
the camp from no one knew where and stampede the cat- 
tle and frighten the women and children into hysterics. - 
In some companies there were much sickness and many 
deaths. . Toward the end of these years of migration the 
trail might have been followed alone by the bleached 
bones of men and women and little children, which the 
wolves and coyotes had dug up out of shallow graves. 
Usually it took three months to cover the more than one 
thousand miles of the journey. 

A stampede was a thing to be dreaded. It struck terror 


Unpleasant 
features. 


"THE LONG, LONGGTRAIL” 189 


into every camp. One of these is worth describing. It 

was in the middle of the night. The watch- 
A stampede. man had just sounded the hour—‘‘One 

o'clock, and all is well!” But all was not 
well, though it was no doubt one o’clock. For presently 
the cattle in the enclosure showed signs that something 
was about to happen. They became restless. Soon there 
was a clanking of chains, a creaking of yokes, a bellow- 
ing of the cattle. In a little while one of them found an 
opening. It rushed through, followed by all the rest. 
Nothing could head them off now. Away they dashed, 
to be swallowed up in the darkness of the great prairie. 
All the men and boys in the camp, now fully awake, got 
up, dressed hastily, mounted their horses, and plunged 
into the black night, gun in hand, after the escaping ani- 
mals. On and on they rode madly, mile after mile, till 
they overtook the cattle, and headed them in the direction 
of camp. Meanwhile, the women and children lay 
stricken with terror, expecting every moment that In- 
dians would steal upon them from out the darkness. For 
who could tell but they had decoyed the men from camp 
for this very purpose? 


Nothing, however, could break the spirit of this truly 
heroic people. The men and women of this 
migration succeeded in wresting joy out of 
the most unpromising situations. 


Pleasant 
features. 


Always they halted on Sunday. No work was to be 
done except what was absolutely necessary. Always, too, 
religious services were held, at which there were singing 
and preaching. If there happened to be a scholar in the 
company, he was invited to deliver an address. The sub- 
ject might be astronomy, or grammar, or the differential 


190 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


calculus—the farther away from their present troubles, 
the better. 

Of an evening there were entertainments of various 
kinds. Singing and dancing were the chief pastimes on 
the plains. A stranger who later heard hundreds of 
times the favorite hymn, “The Spirit of God like a Fire 
is Burning,” said that he had heard it really sung but 
once, and that was by a company of Saints on the way to 
Salt Lake Valley. In some of the companies were a good 
many Welsh immigrants, who, although not very adept at 
hitching and unhitching a team, yet cheered many a heart 
with their gladness in song. Even in that memorable 
handceart company, where sickness and death were com- 
mon occurrences, a young man named Dobson, an emi- 
grant from England, used to do the highland fling with 
frozen feet on the endgate of one of the pushcarts. It 
was while crossing the Plains that William Clayton wrote 
that well-known hymn, “Come, come, ye Saints,” which 
expressed the determined sentiment of all the companies 
on this famous trek. The entire hymn follows: 


Come come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear, 
But with Joy wend your way; 

Though hard to you this journey may appear, 
Grace shall be as your day. 

‘Tis better far for us to strive, 

Our useless caress from us to drive: 

Do this, and joy your hearts will swell— 

All is well! All is well! 


Why should we mourn, or think our lot is hard? 
’Tis not so; all is right! 

Why should we think to earn a great reward, 
If we now shun the fight? 

Gird up your loins, fresh courage take, 

Our God will never us forsake; 

And soon we’ll have this tale to tell— 

All is well! All is well! 


THES LCONG EONG TRAIL? 19] 


We'll find the place which God for us prepared, 
Far away in the West; 

Where none shall come to hurt nor make afraid: 
There the Saints will be blessed. 

Wee’ll make the air with music ring,— 

Shout praises to our God and King: 

Above the rest these words we'll tell— 

All is well! All is well! 


“And should we die before our journey’s through, 
Happy day! All is well! 

We then are free from toil and sorrow too; 
With the just we shall dwell. 

But if our lives are,spared again 

To see the Saints, their rest obtain, 

O how we'll make this chorus swell— 

All is well! All is well!” 


QUESTIONS 


1. How far is it from the Missouri river to Salt Lake valley? 

2. Compare in as many points as you can the country then, 
and now, that lies between the Missouri and the Great Basin. 

3. Compare the different modes of travel, the time involved, 
the character required. 

4. Can character be developed under present conditions as 
well as under those of early pioneer days? Give particulars. 


COAPIER eX VIL 


THE BATTLE WITH THE SOIL 


On Temple Square in Salt Lake City, should you go 
there some day, you will see a monument to the sea-gull, 
the only monument to birds ever erected. 
Rising from a granite base, which weighs 
twenty tons, is a graceful column, also of 
granite, fifteen feet high, surmounted by a granite globe 
on which two of these beautiful birds are in the act of 
alighting. And if you should care to listen some time to 
one of the regular guides on the grounds as he takes 
around a group of tourists, you would hear one of the 
most touching stories ever told about birds. The story 
of how some geese, cackling, saved Rome has been famous 
now for thousands of years; but the story of how the sea- 
gulls saved the “Mormon” community in the arid valley 
of the great Salt Lake Basin is far more interesting and 
wonderful than that ancient tale. This bird monument, 
with its figures of oxen and Indians, of tired men and 
hopeful women drawing inspiration from the pitiless skies, 
with its background of lake and mountain, and its fields 
of ripened wheat—all this will stand for ages, let us hope, 
as a grateful reminder in the westland of the mercy of 
God to the “Mormon”’ pioneer. 


The Sea-gull 
Monument. 


From all the information we can gather about Salt 
Lake valley in 1847 we must conclude that it was a for- 
bidding and unfruitful spot. 


The very looks of it provoked from one of the three 
women in the first company the exclamation, “Why, I’d 


13 





Sea-Gull Monument on 
Temple Square 


7) 





TH ESGA TRIER OWITH “THEY SOUL 195 


Utah atdey rather go another thousand miles than stay 
spot to the here!” When Brigham Young said, “This 
pioneers. is the place!” he was probably not thinking 
of its appearance. One of our humorists pictures a lean, 
hungry-looking wolf on a desert as the first reception 
committee in Utah; and this is not far from the truth. 

Bridger, you remember, said that nothing would grow 
here. One lonesome cedar tree, some struggling willows 
on a small creek, an unbroken stretch of alkali plain, thin 
coyotes and wolves howling to the moon, some poor speci- 
mens of natives eating roasted crickets because there was 
nothing else here to live on, a sun-dried soil so hard 
that it had to be irrigated before a plowshare would pene- 
trate it—this was the view that presented itself to that 
first pioneer company from the east mountain on that 
famous twenty-fourth of July, 1847. 

Pioneers of this early period assure us that what is now 
called Davis county, was then as infertile as Salt Lake 
valley. 

What with an alkali desert to the north of them, an 
impassable salt sea in front of them, a band of quarrel- 
some Indians to their south, and a thousand miles of 
mountain and plain to their rear, their problem was clear— 
how were they to wrest enough from a soil like this to 
feed and clothe a whole people? 


Their first care was for food and shelter. 
Although the season was well advanced when the pio- 
neer company arrived here, they made haste to put in 
several acres of potatoes, corn, peas, and 
First care other vegetables. Before they could do this, 
for food. : 
however, it was necessary to flood the 
ground by putting a dam in a nearby stream. In this 


196 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


simple act the great system of irrigation in the Great 
Basin had its beginning. But nothing came of the crop, 
except some seed potatoes about the size of marbles, which 
were carefully preserved for another season’s planting. 
That winter, fortunately, was one of the mildest ever 
known in Utah. The two thousand and more persons in 
the valley were housed in the Old Fort, or 
First winter. stockade, begun in August. This was a 
| series of huts on what is now Pioneer 
Square in Salt Lake City, built of logs and adobes and 
arranged in a rectangular form round the outside of the 
ten-acre block on which it stood. With walls nine feet 
high and twenty-seven inches thick, it furnished good 
protection against Indian attacks, but its roof, which was 
of brush and earth, provided but a poor shelter against 
rain. It was not an uncommon sight to see a housewife 
going about her duties in a silk dress (her others having 
worn out) with an umbrella over her head to keep off 
the rain that came through the roof. Also there were 
men that first year in the Basin whose only dress con- 
sisted of the skins of animals. Nothing happened to 
break the daily round of monotony. 
Spring opened with bright prospects. During the 
winter there had. been occasional plowing as the weather 
permitted. But in February farmwork was 
Spring. carried on in real earnest. For food must 
be provided not merely for themselves but 
for those who were to come the next summer. Five 
thousand acres, all inclosed in a fence, were put under 
cultivation, nine hundred acres of this being in wheat. 
In this work women and children joined the men. 
As the summer wore on, food as well as clothing became 
scarce. Sego and thistle roots were therefore brought 


WoW PIO MUL 








THEY BATTLES WELH  LHEVSOUL 199 


into requisition. The tops of the thistle made good greens 
and furnished the necessary bulk, even if it did not yield 
the essential nutriment. For, as one of those who lived 
through it all, declares with grim humor, “To have the 
stomach full was an agreeable sensation, even if the con- 
tents were only thistle tops.” Some milch cows had died, 
others had dried up—which was an irreparable loss under 
the circumstances. 

And so June came, and with it high hopes and anticipa- 
tions for a rich harvest, since the fields were green and 
pleasant to look upon. 

With dramatic suddenness, however, these bright pros- 
pects were blasted. Great black clouds of crickets, like 

an Egyptian plague, poured from the east 
Crickets. hills upon the edge of the growing grain 

and began to devour it. The beautiful ver- 
dure before them became as a burnt prairie behind them. 
The people all turned out to fight the pests. They tried 
to beat them back with cloths and brooms and clubs. They 
dug trenches and filled these with water. They started 
fires to burn them. It was all to no purpose. At last in 
despair they threw up their hands and went home. They 
would send word to the immigrants now on the way to 
the valley not to come on, and they would try to shift 
here for another season. But they fell upon their knees 
and prayed that the God who had never forsaken them 
in the past would come to their help on this occasion. ' 


~ Especially did the gloomy forbodings of many find 
sufficient ground in the appearance just then of innumer- 
able flocks of gulls to light on the sown fields. Surely 
now their doom was sealed, for they would starve before 
the year was out. But to their surprise and joy, the birds, 
instead of eating the young grain, proceeded to eat the 


200 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


crickets. The prayers and faith of the people had been 
answered. All day the gulls gorged upon the pests, flew 
away and disgorged, and came back to repeat the process. 
So a great deal of the crops was saved. Is it any wonder 
that the “Mormon” people looked upon this appearance of 
the gulls as an act of Providence and that soon they en- 
acted laws protecting this white-winged bird from the 
destroying hand of man? 
Still during the winter following, the population of the 

Great Basin, which now numbered between four and five 

thousand persons, had to be put on rations. 
Starvation After the harvest in August it was found 
time. ° ° ° . 

that, estimating till the following July, there 
was but three-fourths of a pound of flour for each man, 
woman, and child. So once more the people took to 
eating sego and thistle roots, thistle tops, and even raw 
hides. This period has come down to us as “The starva« 
tion time,” as it truly was. It was no comfort to the 
hungering Saints that President Heber C. Kimball had 
predicted just before winter opened that goods would be 
sold in Salt Lake City cheaper than in Eastern cities, for 
it is extremely doubtful whether any one believed his 
prophecy—it was so incredible. 


Yet in an unexpected manner the general supply of both 
food and clothing was increased. . It happened that Salt 
Lake City lay on the route taken by emi- 

Unexpected grants to California in search of gold. In 
supe ce the summer of 1849, literally thousands of 
them passed through the place, many of them with wagon 
loads of merchandise which they hoped to dispose of on 
the Coast at a profit. But when, in June of this year, they 
were shown bags of gold dust that had been obtained 
there, they lost their heads in their hurry to be off to the 


Late pA bh ere Wilh: THE SOUL 201 


gold-fields at any cost. The “Mormons” were able to 
profit by this eagerness for wealth on the part of the emi- 
grants. Heavy vehicles were traded for light ones, work 
horses for ponies and pack mules, and food supplies were 
limited to what was actually needed on the way. “Some- 
times three or four heavy wagons, with a yoke of oxen 
thrown in, would be offered for a light one-horse wagon.” 
Articles of merchandise, like sheeting, shovels, vests, tools, 
and similar things, were sold at less than half what they 
were worth in eastern markets. Thus was fulfilled one 
- of the most striking prophecies in our history. 

Beginning with the autumn of 1849 there was a series 
of abundant crops for five or six years, so that we do not 
read during this time of any more starvation periods. In 
1849 crops were abundant, owing partly to a plentiful 
supply of irrigation water. The fruit trees that had been 
planted now began to send out blossoms, and in another 
year or two bore sweet flavored fruit. As more people 
came from the frontiers and from England and Wales, 
more land was put under cultivation. At last the great 
problem of how to live in the valley of the great Salt 
Lake had been solved. | 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why was the problem of getting food enough to eat such 
a big one the first years in the Valley? How did it become less 
important as time went on? 

2. In what way was the religious faith of the Saints answered 
in this early time? 

Do you consider it possible for a similar scarcity of food 
supplies to occur now? If so, how? If not, why not? 


CELA BR TER xx Vili 
“HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION” 


There is a significant story told of laying the founda- 
tion of the Salt Lake temple. 

One day Brigham Young stood watching some work- 
men laying a huge granite stone in the foundation. Find- 

ing that it rocked a little after it had been 
Lay it right, placed, they put some stone chips under- . 

neath to make it sit firm. When the men 
had finished and were about to place another, President 
Young said, 

“How many stones have you laid that way?” 

“Why, all of them,” was the reply. 

“Then tear out the whole foundation,” he added, “and 
lay it again—right. This building must stand for all 
time, and it won’t do that with chips in its foundation. 
Trim every stone till it fits exactly, so there can’t be any 
give.” 

And this was done. 

That is what had to take place with the new community 
of Latter-day Saints. It had to be built so securely on 
its foundations that it could not be undermined. Such 
principles would have to be applied as would insure a 
stable and permanent commonwealth. Let us see just 
how this was done by these builders of a state. 


The first thing looking to this end was a religious act— 
every Saint entering the valley must “renew his cove- 
nants” in baptism. 


A thing is not half done till you feel right about it. 
The attitude, or frame of mind, is everything, You can- 





Salt Lake Temple 





“HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION” 205 


not do a given act unless you believe you 
Re-Baptism. can. Who says, “I can not,” can not—and 

there an end. What could be a more appro- 
priate act on the threshold of this new life than baptism? 
Baptism was a sign that you had broken with the past — 
and that you had set your face towards the future, with 
its promise. Besides, it was impressive in itself, being 
an act, and would be a sign to both man and God that 
His chosen people had made up their minds to serve Him 
in their new home, to which He had guided them. 


Brigham Young and the apostles led the way. This 
was thirteen days after the first company had entered 
the Basin. Baptizing was continued till all of those who 
were in the valley had solemnly promised through this 
ordinance to keep the commandments of the Lord. Other 
companies followed this practice of re-baptism, as did all 
the immigrants for many years. Thus, at the very out- 
set, a mental attitude, as we say to-day, was induced in the 
early inhabitants of Utah toward their future. 


One great difficulty in the settlement of a new country 
such as the “Mormons” moved into, grows out of the 
possession of the land. Here as almost ev- 


How the : 
fang was erywhere else the greed in man comes to the 
divided. surface in a very undesirable way. If noth- 


ing had been done to prevent it, a few men in the new 
community would probably have grabbed all the good 
land they could lay their hands on, letting the others 
go begging, as the saying is. And it might easily be that 
a landed aristocracy would have grown up among the 
Saints with its long train of dependents. For that is the 
way the classes of land-owners and land-renters have 
come about in every country where they exist. 


206 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


But the “Mormon” leaders took a different view of the 
matter. On the second day after the arrival of the pioneer 
company, which was Sunday, President Young said, “No 
man who comes here shall buy land, for none has any 
to sell; but every man shall have his land measured out 
to him for city and farming purposes. He may till it as 
he pleases, but he must be industrious and take care of it.” | 
Here we have the true basis of land-ownership and use. 

It must be remembered that, when the pioneer com- 
pany entered the Salt Lake Basin, the country now em- 
braced by Utah belonged to Mexico. That is why the 
“Mormon” leaders undertook to give men their “inherit- 
ances’ in the new home. But, even so, as soon as the 
territory became the possession of the United States, it 
was necessary to enter upon the land in the usual manner. 

That the parcelling out of the land might proceed in 
an orderly way, a large tract was platted into a city, with 

blocks and streets, with farms on the out- 
city Lake side. + Each lot in the city proper was ten 
? by twenty rods, not counting the streets, 
which were eight rods wide and crossed one another at 
right angles. There were eight of these lots to a block 
of ten acres each. Four public squares were provided 
for in the original plat. Outside the city limits were five, 
ten, and twenty-acre farms, according to the distance 
from the center of the city. Said President Young at the 
time, “Let every man cultivate his own lot, and set out 
every kind of fruit and shade tree and beautify the city.” 
After this fashion has practically every town in ‘“Mor- 
mon’’ settlements everywhere been made. 

Thus, by wise methods in the beginning, did the “Mor- 
mon” leaders curb the natural greed of man for the pos- 
session of land and prevent the injustice and inequalities 


“HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION” 207 


that grow out of land-grabbing. And the people generally 
entered into the spirit of this plan of distribution. It 1s 
doubtful whether in any other community under similar 
conditions there was as little disposition for land greed 
as here; and this was due to the firm, intelligent leader- 
ship of Brigham Young more than to anything else. 


Another important principle applied in the founding of 
the “Mormon” commonwealth in the West was that the 
people must become self-supporting. Now, 
Home | to be that, they must produce whatever they 
industries. : : 
consumed. This meant that the Saints, who 
found themselves needing more and more things, would 
have to establish a larger number of industries—which, as 
a matter of fact, they did. As early as 1847 President 
Young urged the immigrants to bring with them choice 
seeds of grain, vegetables, fruits, shrubbery, trees, and 
vines, the best stock of birds, fowls, and animals, as well 
as tools and machinery for spinning and weaving and 
dressing wool, cotton, flax, and silk, or even descriptions 
of such machinery by which they might be made—every- 
thing, in short, that would tend to “please the eye, gladden 
the heart, or cheer the soul of man.” 

And this advice was pretty generally followed by the 
immigrants, so that an astonishing variety of articles 
came to be manufactured in the settlements of the “Mor- 
mon” people everywhere. 

That first year one grist mill and two saw miils were 
built, and later this number was increased as the needs 

of the people grew. One woman in Ogden 
Articles clipped wool from the back of sheep, 
made. : : : Ahi 

washed it, carded it, spun it, wove it into 
cloth, and made a suit for her husband. Another made 


208 OUR ‘CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


a straw hat for herself. Lye was made from ashes in 
leach barrels, which, with grease, became soap through 
the skill of the housewife. No one thought of buying 
candles. Brooms were made from birch willows till recu- 
lar broom-corn could be grown. In 1848 a public card- 
ing machine was set up in Salt Lake City. It was but a 
little while till cotton was raised in the southern part of 
the state, where the climate is mild, as was also flax. In 
1852 John Taylor brought to the valley from France ma- 
chinery for the manufacture of sugar. Woolen mills, 
shoe factories, tanneries, cabinet shops sprang up every- 
where as their products were needed. Later, when the 
present tabernacle in Salt Lake City was. erected, one of 
the finest organs in the world was built of home wood 
and by home talent—no small achievement even to-day. 

In this way was built up not only Salt Lake City, but 
many other cities throughout Utah—Logan, Brigham 
City, Ogden, Provo, Richfield, Manti, Parowan, St. 
George, and other smaller cities and towns in the new 
home. It would be interesting to recount the history of 
each did space permit. 

This same policy of development was followed in re- 
spect to men as well as things. President Young seems 
| to have anticipated our present era of spec- 
Training ialists. He knew that whatever needed to 
of men. 

be done had to be done by those who were 

skilled in doing it. So he turned the microscope of his 
genius upon ail the Saints everywhere for skilled work- 
ers, whom, when he discovered them, he placed where 
they would be of the most service to the community. To 
the settlement of Parowan, in Iron county, men were se- 
lected to go because of their knowledge of mining. If a 
particular talent was lacking and could not be found, 


“HOW FIRM A FOUNDATION” 209 


Brigham Young appointed men to the task of develop- 
ing it, as in the case of George A. Smith, one of the 
apostles, who was “given a mission to study law.” 


More and more, as time goes on, is this building of a 
commonwealth coming to be looked upon as the outstand- 
ing marvel in colonization and Brigham Young as the 
greatest colonizer of modern times. 

The country in which this feat was accomplished had 
practically no apparent natural advantages to begin with. 
Value of the Lt was not on the seaboard. It was on no 
work of the navigable river or lake. It had no traveled 
IN aa highways leading into and out of its towns 
and cities. On the contrary, it was arid and uninviting, 
more than a thousand miles from even border civilization, 
over mountains and plains, through deep canyon gorges, 
and across unbridged rivers. Every ounce of food it 
yielded only under hard physical labor on the part of the 
pioneer. 

But without the great organizing genius of Brigham 
Young, the Pioneer of pioneers, it is extremely doubtful 
whether this building of a state could have been brought 
about under the circumstances. His penetrating insight 
into problems, his keen analysis of conditions, his steadi- 
ness of purpose in applying remedies, the great driving 
power of his mind, and, most of all, his masterful hold 
on the wills of his people, brought about chiefly through 
his apostolic office—these are the principal qualities in 
the man who was instrumental in bringing to pass this 
modern miracle of community building. 

President Young’s ideals of building a community are 
just as true to-day as they were when he first announced 
them. It is just as true now as it was then that every 


14 


210 OUR ‘CHURCH ; AND: PEOPLE 


community should be self-supporting, that it should make 
as many as possible of the things it needs, that it should 
have good homes, schools, and factories, and that its work- 
ers should be skilled in their various callings. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why is a firm foundation necessary in a building? Con- 
sult sotme architect or contractor about the foundation of a “‘sky- 
scraper,’ and report to the class. 

2. Is the foundation of individual character equally important ? 
Why? What constitutes this foundation? When is it to be laid? 
What would be an improper foundation here? What happens 
if one neglects this foundation? 

3. What principles did President Young lay in the founda- 
tion of the “Mormon” community? In what way did these differ 
from those usual in his time? . 


GHACPT ERY XXX. 
TEAM-WORK IN COMMUNITY BUILDING 


You have doubtless seen a basket-ball team on the floor, 
contesting the victory with another team, and have ob- 
served how one of the boys, when he got the 
Team-Work. ball in his hands, instead of attempting a 
long-distance throw, which at best would be 
a doubtful venture and likely in a pinch to give the 
opponents a needless advantage, would spot a fellow of 
the same colors nearby and quickly toss him the ball; 
how the ball, never stopping, would then go, now over 
this opponent’s head, now under that one’s arm, from 
one player to another with lightning-like rapidity, till, 
reaching the hands of a man near the basket, it would be 
tossed gracefully and surely by him into the hoop; no 
one caring much who did the scoring, so it counted for 
the team, or the school, or the community. That is team- 
work—an indispensable thing in this exciting game. 

Well, team-work—the meaning, but not the word—was 
the keynote of “Mormon” colony-making in the days of 
Brigham Young. The colonists had learned this co-opera- 
tive idea chiefly on the prairies of Iowa on the way west. 


You remember that at Garden Grove, at Mount Pisgah, 
and at other places “in the wilderness” the men set to 
work cutting down trees, splitting rails, making fences, 
building cabins, digging wells, plowing the ground and 
seeding it—not each man for himself, nor yet all for each, 
but all for all, and that “all” stood, moreover for those 
who would come here after these had gone on. 


fal We OUR (OHV Crit Ai iD ee 


It was easy to carry over this ideal into the work of 
founding a community in “the valleys.” When, therefore, 
such a group under such a leader got to their destination, 
all the men turned in to do what work was necessary-— 
some to get logs for the cabins, some to hew the logs, some 
to build fences and houses, some to keep on the look out 
tor Indians, some to tend the animals, some to plow the 
land and plant it to seed, and so on, each thinking, not of 
himself, but of the group, for in the success of the group 
lay also his own. 

No sooner was there a settlement in Great Salt Lake 
valley, with reasonable assurance that it would prove 
permanent, than there grew up a feeling in the leaders 
for the settlement of other habitable valleys throughout 
the Rocky Mountain region. “We are about to establish 
a colony of about thirty families in the Utah valley,” said 
President Young early in 1849. “We hope to explore 
the valleys three hundred miles south and also the coun- 
try as far as the Gulf of California with a view to settle- 
ment and to acquiring a seaport.” This ambitious scheme 
for taking possession of the country into which the Saints 
had come, the pioneer leader proceeded to carry out in his 
wise and masterful way. 

Exploration of Salt Lake valley began almost as soon 
as the first pioneer company entered the Great Basin. 

While some of the men plowed, and planted, 
Explorations, and unpacked the wagons, others rode out 

to take a look about the new home. They 
examined the hot springs to the north, they laved their 
hands in the salt waters of the lake to the west, and some 
of them rode as far south as Utah Lake. President Young 
and a few others climbed Ensign Peak, which they 
named. 





The First House in Utah 


w 


pe 





TEAM-WORK IN COMMUNITY BUILDING 215 


Within four years of the first arrivals in the Salt Lake 
valley, settlements had been made in what is now known 
as Ogden valley, Utah valley, Tooele valley, Sanpete val- 
ley, Iron county, Box Elder county, and Juab county. 
Later, groups of men and women pushed out from the 
original settlement north, east, and south as far as the 
present borders of the State. 

The method of colonization adopted by Brigham Young 
differed from that adopted in the founding of other 
American commonwealths. 


Settlements elsewhere in early America were made by 
groups of people who became dissatisfied with the old 
rae home and went out voluntarily in search of 
colonization a place where they could make a new home 
was done. for themselves—bold, adventurous spirits, 
as a rule, to whom life was a very tame affair unless it 
furnished something to do battle with. 

Not so with the “Mormon” colonies which Brigham 
Young established. Picking out men here and there— 
strong, fearless men whom the people would instinctively 
look up to for leadership—he called them on missions to 
conduct a colony to this or that valley and to “plant” a 
population there. These men would then betake them- 
selves to gathering a few families, sometimes with and 
sometimes without the aid of the authorities, or they would 
join a group already formed, and go cheerfully and 
proudly to work at making another valley habitable. 

That is one point in Brigham Young’s mode of estab- 
lishing a colony. Another point is equally noteworthy. 
It is the way these colonists went to work when they got 
- there. 

In December, 1850, George A. Smith was “given a mis- 


216 OUR CHURCH "AND: PEOPLE 


sion’ to establish a colony in the southern part of Utah. 


How the His company comprised one hundred eight- 
colonies een men, of whom thirty had families. Cer- 
wen oO J . 

work. tain members of this group had been chosen 


because they were “acquainted with coal-mining and 
manufacturing iron.” Their outfit consisted of one hun- 
dred wagons, six hundred work animals and cows, some 
chickens, dogs, and cats; fifty thousand pounds of flour, 
thirty thousand pounds of wheat, with proportionate 
amounts of corn, oats, barley, potatoes, and groceries; 
tools of every kind—saws, spades and shovels, hoes, 
scythes and grain cradles, panes of glass, stoves and nails ; 
guns and ammunition, including swords, pistols, and one 
six-pound cannon, 


Arriving at a place two hundred seventy miles south 
of Sait Lake City, which they named Parowan, they de- 
cided to locate. After arranging their wagons so as to be 
the most advantageous in case of Indian attacks, they 
proceeded to make eight miles of road to the canyon, in 
order to haul the necessary timber for buildings. The 
first building erected was a “meeting-house,”’ which was 
used not only for religious purposes but for educational 
and political purposes as well. The trees—pine trees they 
were—for this building, we are assured, “were well hewn 
and neatly joined.” Dwelling houses were built, some 
of adobes and some of logs, “all neat, comfortable, and 
convenient.” In front of these were planted gardens and 
shade trees; in the rear, household vegetables grew. 
Thirty miles of canals and ditches were dug, and a grist 
and saw mill constructed. That winter George A. Smith 
conducted a school, which was attended by men and women, 
as well as by the children. After a year, when the colony 


TEAM-WORK IN COMMUNITY BUILDING = 217 


was considered established, their leader returned to Salt 
Lake. 

From the beginning the community was independent, © 
even in an industrial way. Says a woman, who was a child 
then: “My mother herded sheep, sheared 
them, washed and carded the wool, then 
spun it and wove it into cloth. From it she 
made blankets, shawls, and clothing. She dyed the cloth 
of dyes made of rabbit brush, and also the minerals found 
in the hills. We children gleaned the wheat left in the 
fields; the heads were broken off, and the straw pre- 
served and made into braids and sewn into hats. ‘The 
straw was bleached with sulphur found in the mountains. 
Sometimes we made fancy ornaments of straw, particu- 
larly for Christmas remembrances. The hats were trim- 
med with ornaments of straw or a bit of ribbon. We 
raised sugar beets and made molasses. [Father was a 
Garpentervand held) theyotfice “of justice of the peace, 
bishop, and sexton.” 


How they 
throve. 


Also the Saints of this period, with President Young 
as their leader, established a political government in 
Utah. No one knew better than did. the 
Re ater Latter-day Saints the necessity for political 
organization. Their natural inclinations 
were for law and order, for they had grown up in com- 
munities where law-observance was the rule of life. Be- 
sides, their religion and their experiences as a people 
had taught them the value of good government and the 
orderly processes of law. So one of their first thoughts 
was for a political organization. 
They first created what is called a Provisional Govern- 
ment, with Brigham Young as governor. At the conven- 


218 OUR: CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


tion preceding the election a constitution for the pro- 
‘posed State of Deseret was formed, and a delegate was 
sent to the Congress of the United States with a petition 
asking for statehood. The Congress, in 1850, replied by 
organizing a territorial form of government under the 
name Utah. Although Brigham Young was appointed 
governor, most of the officials came from outside the 
community. The word “Utah,” the name of a tribe of 
Indians inhabiting this region at the time, means “on 
the heights” or “in the tops of the mountains.” 


As was to be expected there was more or less friction 
between the “Mormons” and some of these officials, 
which continued with intervals till statehood was acquired 
in 1896, This was due partly to the peculiarities of the 
“Mormon” people, using this word in no bad sense, but 
partly to the fact that many of the men who were ap- 
pointed to offices in the Territory were minor politicians 
who had been rewarded in this way for party services and 
who therefore had no interest in the people other than 
in holding office and drawing a salary. Some of these 
misrepresented conditions in Utah, others insulted the 
whole “Mormon” people publicly. In 1857, in conse- 
quence of a general impression that the “Mormons” were 
disloyal to the nation, Governor Young was displaced in 
that office by a man from the outside. But the friction 
continued, with ebbing and flowing tides of feeling, till, 
as stated, Utah became a member of the Union. These 
difficulties, however, are of no interest now, except to 
throw light on some things that happened then. 


i 
We still have need. of team-work in our communities, 


though not perhaps in exactly the same ways in which 


TEAM-WORK IN COMMUNITY BUILDING 219 


Needialwayeus a pioneer fathers had. Not singly, but 
of together, we must work to make our towns 
_team-work, and cities clean and beautiful, to build 
schools and churches, to rid our population of vice and 
crime, to make life happy and prosperous for all. Asa 
matter of fact, the pioneers of Utah were fifty years 
ahead of their time in this matter of team-work in com- 
munity building; for it has been only recently that the 
people of the United States have awakened to the neces- 
sity of pulling together socially, and even now they lack 
the machinery that is found in every Latter-day Saint 
community. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is team work in a game, say, foot-ball or basket- 
ball? What is team-work in debating? What is team-work in 
school? In a town? In the Church? 

2. How can team-work operate in a school so as to eliminate, 
or at least minimize, stealing, cheating, sluffing. and other 
offenses? 

3. Show how team-work on the part of a community might 
accomplish similar results, say, disobedience to law. 

4. Show how team-work could be used constructively (a) in 
your school, (b) in your town, (c) in your Church, and (d) 
among the nations of the world. 


OE WEA Ae, @. 0.4 
AN ENSIGN TO THE NATIONS 


One could easily believe, from the amount of thought 
and effort given during this period to material affairs, 
that the “Mormon” pioneers had little or no time for 
spiritual matters. But this would be to take a snap judg- 
ment. The truth is that a great deal of attention was 
given to religion, as we shall see. 

Always in this world there is the thing you see with 
the eyes of the head, and there is the thing you see with 
Wises meee the eyes of the mind. In a contest, say, in 
and what is basket-ball between your school and another, 
not. what is it that concerns you most? Not this 
or that play made by our team, although you are keenly 
interested in that. Nor is it even the final score, al- 
though you have looked forward to that from the begin- 
ning. But the thing that has all the time been in the 
back of your mind is the school which your team repre- 
sents. It was the same in the recent world war, only, of 
course, on a larger and vastly more important scale. AI- 
though men and women in every nation of the Allied 
countries followed with tears and anguish every battle 
on the field of blood, yet the thing that was behind their 
thoughts was the grave question, Shall the world be ruled 
by the few or by the many? 


That was the way with the “Mormon” people in the 
exodus from Illinois. They left Nauvoo, they crossed 
the plains and the mountains, they settled in the arid parts 
of the West because they wanted to. They did not need 
to do that. If they had wished, they could have remained 
in their old homes in peace and prosperity. But they 


PONGENSIGNEST OPEB INA TTONS et 


would have had to give up their faith. They, therefore, 
deliberately chose the sufferings of the wilderness rather 
than to sacrifice their religious convictions. So you see 
that back of everything in their minds was the ever-pres- 
ent thought of God. They abandoned rich farmland with 
good houses and the conveniences of modern life in those 
days for the barren desert with its log cabin and priva- 
tions, because they believed they could better serve their 
God that way. | 

How could a people who were doing this for conscience 
sake be anything else than deeply religious Back of 
THeipionecramonn.: furrow the farmer plowed, back of 
were every blow on the blacksmith’s anvil, back 
religious. of every stroke of the carpenter’s adze as he 
hewed logs for his cabin, back of every idea in the states- 
man’s plan for an orderly government, back, certainly, 
of every tanned face and in every tanned breast in that 
empire-building host was the thought, This is for the 
building up of God’s kingdom on the earth! And this 
statement is literally true. So, in taking stock of the 
religious activities of the Saints during this troubled pe- 
riod, we must set down this fact of a basic spiritual mo- 
tive to begin with. 


Then, again, in estimating the religious life of the pio- 
neers we must take into account their peculiar notions, 
unique at that time, of what constitutes religion. 

The religion of the pioneers was a religion of work, of 
service. They read the Bible and went to church. But 
the things they read in the Scriptures and 
the things they heard from “the stand” in 
their religious meetings incited them to 
action rather than to contemplation. To them a musical 


A religion 
of work. 


222 OUR! CHURCH "AND PEGPGE 


instrument might be a means of spiritual uplift, even on 
the Sabbath, and dancing a means of innocent and needed 
reaction. Why should dancing, when properly conducted, 
be considered sinful? Honorable work was a sort of 
worship in itself, whether of.the brain or of the hand. 
As for appearing religious, with them fasting, which 1s 
usually accompanied by outward signs of piety, is synony- 
mous with joy, which is not generally regarded as a pious 
token. God required men to be “doers of the word, not 
hearers only.” Not fine-spun distinctions between 
tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum in theology, but good works, 
and plenty of them, found favor with the Lord. One 
could worship God more truly in helping one’s brother 
in a time of need than in merely sitting down and folding 
the arms and thinking about His goodness and wisdom. 
The Saints have never believed in the forms of religion 
to the detriment of the spirit of religion. And in this 
they anticipated our own times, or, to speak with greater 
accuracy, they harked back to the times of Jesus. 

_ The pioneers were a praying people. Every company 
that crossed the Plains on the way to the Salt Lake Basin 
conducted prayers night and morning. That 


Pioneers : ‘ 
were is also true of the colonies that went from 
prayerful. the Salt Lake valley to build new settle- 


ments. ‘his was carrying out the teachings of the Church 
concerning daily prayer. Even the entertainments were 
always opened and closed with prayer, as being conducive 
of better order and decorum. 

The pioneers, as we have seen, helped one another in 
every way. ‘The interest of one was deemed the interest 
C_opetition of all; and this is of the very essence of re- 
among the ligion. In the great trek west the golden 
pioneers. rule was supposed to be the guide. Every 


AN ENSIGN TO THE NATIONS 223 


man must be as much concerned for the safety of his 
neighbor’s cattle as for his own. President Young con- 
stantly urged the men to be humane to their animals. Ii 
he discovered a horse with a sore neck being worked, 
he roundly scolded its owner. 


The pioneers were also a church-going people. When- 
ever they stopped at a place for any length of time, they. 

; usually built a “meeting house.” There was 
Pioneers a : : 
church-going Stich at Garden Grove, at Mount Pisgah, and 
people. at Kanesville. The one at this last place 
was of considerable size, and called a “tabernacle.” One 
of the first structures erected at Salt Lake was a “bowery’”’ 
—upright posts roofed over by poles crosswise covered 
with brush. On the way to the valley of the Salt Lake the 
companies paused on a Sunday and held religious ser- 
vices, which consisted of prayer and singing and preach- 
ing. In every settlement, not only in Utah but in the 
temporary ones in Iowa, there was a division into wards 
to facilitate attendance at meeting. Twenty-two wards 
were established in Kanesville, in 1846, and nineteen in 
Salt Lake City, in 1849. 


Finally, the Latter-day Saints were careful to surround 
themselves in their various settlements, at the very out- 
set, by conditions that would promote the highest physical 
and social well-being, so far as circumstances would allow. 
This is seen in the way they went about the making of 
new settlements in the valleys that lay to the north, to the 
south, and to the east of Salt Lake valley. 


You may have learned something from your history 
class in school about country settlements in many of the 
Eastern States. A man homesteads a piece of land, fences 
it in, builds him a house and a barn, and begins to raise 


224 OUR (CHURCH AND” PEOPLE 


a crop. Presently another man does the same thing to 
the north, a second to the east, a third to the south, and 
_a fourth to the west of him. After a time others:do the 
same thing beyond these in all directions, till in time the 
whole country is dotted with farm houses. In this way 
most of the country districts in the United States were 

settled. Towns grew up here and there because they were 
~ advantageously located, and they grew into cities by the 
same token. 

That was not the way with the people who settled 
Utah. They went to work, not man by man, but group 
by group. When a new settlement was to be made, as 
we have already seen, a company of men with their fam- 
ilies undertook the task. They. first platted a town, di- 
viding off the land by means of streets running at right 
angles, into blocks of convenient size. There was usually 
a public square, with a meeting house, which, in default 
of other buildings, was used for religious and educational 
and political purposes. This was the center of the settle- 
ment. The people lived here. The farms were situated 
on the outside, within easy reach of the town. Thus the 
community could protect itself from the depredations of 
the Indians and at the same time have the advantages of 
both city and country life. 

Each of these communities was organized politically, 
with all the officers necessary to conduct the business of 
the town and to keep the peace. Each had its own school, 
for the education of the children in the secular branches. 
And each had also its ward organization for the proper 
cultivation of religion in the old and the young. Political, 
educational, and religious institutions are what constitute 
the mainstay of civilization in any age and community. 
And all these, the “Mormon” people were greatly con- 


AN ENSIGN TO THE NATIONS 225 


cerned about, to see that they were maintained every- 
where at their best under the circumstances. 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is it to be religious? Point out different things to 
show that the pioneers of Utah were.essentially. religious. 

‘2. What duty has the Lord placed on the Latter-day Saints, 
so far as religion is concerned, affecting (a) their work among 
themselves and (b) their work among non-‘‘Mormons ?” 

3. To what extent did it require exertion and sacrifice on the 
part of the pioneers to carry on missionary work? 


15 


CHAPTER XXXI 


“THE {LION .O be hohe OR DS 


As the Prophet Joseph Smith is the outstanding figure 
in the first part of the history of the Church, so Brigham 
Young is the outstanding figure in the second part of 
that history. The former was a great leader in spiritual 
things; the latter, in material affairs; but both have left 
their impress indelibly upon “Mormonism.” The names 
of both men are known, for good and evil, wherever 
“Mormonism” has been proclaimed or even heard of. 
_ Both, moreover, were intensely hated by their enemies 
and devotedly loved by their friends. 


srigham Young was born in Vermont, of old American 

stock, like most of the early Church leaders. The ninth 

in a family of eleven children and his father 

Birth. poor, it is not difficult to understand that 

he had only a few days’ schooling and that 

he launched out for himself as carpenter, painter, and 

elazier at the age of sixteen, becoming an expert at this 
three-fold occupation. 


Not till he was past thirty did he become a Latter-day 
Saint. He appears not to have been easily influenced by 
the emotional revivalist of that period, for 

Conversion he became a Methodist, the religion of his 
father, at twenty-three, and he was slow in 

accepting the new revelation. He heard of “Mormonism” 
quite by accident, as it seemed. A brother of the Prophet 
had left at one of the Youngs a copy of the Book of Mor- 
mon. This volume Brigham read carefully and finally 





President Brigham Young 


% 





EE LONE HB he hOR DS 229 


believed... Twor years afterwards; in April, :1832,. he 
joined the Church. 

His was therefore no half-hearted conversion. [Ever 
slow to make up his mind on important matters, he was 
tenacious of his views once it was made up. [rom that 
moment till his death, forty-five years later, he never 
wavered in his allegiance to “Mormonism.” He became 
immediately active. In a few months he was at Kirtland, 
where he met the Prophet. It is said that on the evening 
of the day on which this meeting took place Joseph re- 
quested Brigham to pray and that in the midst of the 
prayer he spoke in tongues, “the pure Adamic language,” 
the Prophet said. Presentiy He took a mission to Canada 
with his brother Joseph, returning with some “sheaves.” 
Of his being called to the apostleship, of his conducting 
the British Mission, of his activities in leading the exodus 
from Missouri to [linois and from Illinois to Utah, and 
of his extraordinary leadership in “the valleys of the 
mountains,’ it is not necessary to speak here, for these 
have already been laid before the reader. 

If you had a life-size portrait of President Young— 
say, when he was about fifty-five—this is what you wouid 

see: A man who looks both larger and 
Personal younger than he is. He is five feet, nine 
ibaa ch tary weinichestan height and weighs about two hun- 
dred pounds. He stands erect with broad shoulders. Hus 
forehead is high and somewhat narrow, his eyebrows 
thin, his eyes between grey and blue, his fine nose some- 
what pointed, his cheeks fleshy, his face clean-shaven 
except for a fringe of beard under the chin: Hus hands 
are well-made and shapely. The impression you get from 
the whole face is of power, frankness, and abundant en- 
joyment of life. 


230 OUR CHURCH: AND’ (PEOPLE 


His dress is of homespun, neat and plain. His necktie 
of dark silk, tied in a large bow, is passed round a starch- 
less collar. A plain gold chain passes from 
Dress. a button hole in his black satin vest to one 
of the lower pockets. His stockings, clean 
and white, show beneath his trousers. Altogether it is 
the dress of a plain farmer of the well-to-do class. 
Of all the qualities of President Young none stood out 
more than his love for “Mormonism” and his loyalty to 
its teachings. He used to say that rather 
Qualities. than deny the faith he would prefer to die 
the most painful death there could be. It 
took him two years to make up his mind that he wanted 
to be a Latter-day Saint, but once he joined, his religion 
became the main thing in his life. By it he measured 
everything. It was his constant concern by day and his 
dreams by night. And he loved the Prophet because the 
Prophet taught him the truth. No one could be more 
loyal to a man or to a cause than was Brigham Young to 
Joseph Smith and to “Mormonism.” President Young’s 
last words in mortality were, “Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!” . 
Every one who knew Brigham Young speaks of him as 
well-bred. Good breeding was natural to him, for he 
never went to school much. Perhaps he im- 
Manners. proved his native talent for good manners 
by his naturally keen powers of observation. 
The first impression he made upon strangers was, that he 
was not a common man, but rather a man of ex- 
ceptional character. He never affected to have what he 
did not really possess, but always acted naturally. There 
was none of the hypocrite about President Young. His 
words reflected what was in his mind. Even-tempered, 
he sometimes was thought to be cold. Standing. as he 


eure LONE} Ba ne hORDY Z51 


did, at the head of a great Church, yet he never thrust 
religion before people with whom he happened to be 
conversing. 

President Young was one of the most approachable of 
men—too approachable, he must often have thought. 
an “Were I to go to the canyon,” he said once 
approachable at a social gathering, “the whole camp of 
pagn: Israel would follow me there. And they 
would not be there long before they would say, ‘Come, 
Brother Brigham, I want to talk with you.’ Scores and 
hundreds of times, when my calling in the kingdom of 
God was less than it is now, have I endeavored to set my- 
self to work, but seldom could have a chance to do so 
more than five minutes, till some one would come along 
and say, ‘Give me the hoe, Brother Brigham, I want to 
talk with you’—and so stop me; and no sooner stop me 
than he stops also.’ He meant “work” for the purpose 
of getting exercise. For he explained at the time that 
he did not wrestle or play ball, but only engaged in danc- 
ing. Dancing, he said, enabled him “‘to kick off from his 
heels” all the worries he could not carry. 

And then, when you did approach him and got a hear- 
ing, he gave you his whole attention and sympathy. If the 

p interview were in the office or at home, he 
Attentive : i : 
and sat on the edge of his chair leaning forward, 
sympathetic. his hands on his knees. He never missed 
anything you said, and long before you were through, his 
quick mind had the answer ready. “I have feeling of a 
very acute nature,” he said on the occasion just referred 
to in the preceding paragraph. “There is not a man or 
woman, saint or sinner, it mattereth not, that feels injured, 
and lays their complaints before me, but what it rests up- 
on my feelings. My feelings sympathize with the injured, 


232 OUR: CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


so that I am grieved and distressed.” Yet he never spoke 
about his own sorrows. “There is not a person in the 
community,” he went on, “that can mention the time when 
I ever exhibited one particle of sorrow or trouble to them. 
I calculate to carry my own sorrows just as long as I live 
upon:-this earth; and when I go to the grave, I expect 
them all to go there and sleep with me in eternal silence,” 
The reference to dancing demands a. word concerning 
Brigham Young’s attitude toward recreation in its broad 
aspect. While he was too busy himself to 
a eee irae indulge in much entertainment, still he 
recognized its value to men and women. 
“Experience tells us,” he said one time, ‘‘that the most of 
the inhabitants of the earth wear out their bodies with- 
out wearing their minds at all, through the sufferings they 
endure from hard labor, with distress, poverty, and want. 
While, on the other hand, a great portion of mankind 
wear out their bodies without laboring, only in anxiety. 
But when men are brought to labor entirely in the field 
of intelligence, there are few minds to be found possess- 
ing strength enough to bear all things. The mind becomes 
overcharged, and when this is the case, it begins to wear 
upon the body, which will sink for want of proper exer- 
cise.” To relieve this tension on the part of both the 
mental and the physical worker, whether rich or poor, 
President Young recognized the need for recreation. 
And he applied this theory in his own life and the life of 
the community. Like Joseph Smith, he enjoyed athletic 
sports, although, unlike the Prophet, he never indulged in 
them himself. He regarded all forms of card-playing as 
not merely a waste of time but as a breeder of irritation, 
idleness, and gambling. But he was a graceful dancer, 
This was almost his only means of shaking off his cares. 


Cit eLIiONvOr PHETLORD’? 233 


Still, he always insisted that a line was to be drawn be- 
tween religion and dancing. “I want it distinctly under- 
stood,” he said, “that fiddling and dancing are no part of 
our worship.” Moreover, he was a great patron of the 
drama, as is shown in the erection during the early days 
of Utah of the Social Hall in the fifties and the Salt Lake 
Theater, in 1862, and the establishment of the Deseret 
Dramatic Association. 
Brigham Young was always simple in his tastes, his 
habits, his life generally. His meals were simple, often 
consisting of baked potatoes and buttermilk. 
Tastes. On his trips to the settlements south and 
north, elaborate meals were served to the 
presidential party. On such occasions he would generally 
compliment the hostess on the “fine spread” and then ask 
her for a bowl of bread and milk for himself. For many 
years after coming to Utah he insisted on working with 
his hands, following the advice he gave to others. 
These yearly trips south made by President Young and 
his party throw considerable light on both his character 
and his times. Let us look at one of them in some detail. 
It is the year 1865. The month is September. A com- 
pany of twenty “outfits,” headed by President Young, 
is on its way to southern Utah. The Presi- 
A trip south. dent rides in an old-fashioned English car- 
riage, drawn by a team of mules—an elegant 
mode of travel in those days. Another of the company— 
Rk. T. Burton—drives in a stage-coach of the period 
hitched to four horses. Each family has its own “out- 
fit,’ which consists of the carriage in which they ride 
and an extra team and wagon or two, according to the 
number in the family, with bedding, provisions, and some 
“best clothes.” 


234 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


It passes through Lehi, Goshen, Round Valley, Fill- 
more, Beaver, Parowan, Toquerville, Washington, and St. 
George. This is the usual route south. All the way 
there is a mounted and armed guard, to protect the com- 
pany from Indian raids. It is not always the same guard, 
for, as the company approaches one town, it is met by 
a guard, which, relieving the old guard, stays with the 
train till it in turn is relieved by a new guard from the 
next town on the route. 

At Lehi, there is a public reception and banquet, with 
a conference in the evening. Goshen has erected a 
gigantic arch of fresh cedar boughs intermingled with 
flowers and mock oranges. Above all is the motto, “We 
Shall!’ in allusion to a suggestion made by President 
Young the previous year that they change the name of the 
place to “Shall I?” because they had planted no trees 
there. 

At Parowan the townspeople line the road on both 
sides to welcome the party—men in homespun suits with 
broad, outstanding hats; women in their calico dresses 
and with beaming faces; boys with gay-colored woolen 
overshirts, knives at their belts, and spurs on their heels, 
in imitation of some wild riders they had once seen; girls, 
some with shoes and some without, but all with armsful 
of hollyhocks and other wild flowers. Also there is a 
brass band, in uniforms of home-made stuff of a light- 
blue color. The band in the parade is followed by a 
eroup of fourteen young ladies, dressed in white with a 
scarlet sash over the left shoulder, tied in a bow on the 
right side, and carrying a banner on which is inscribed, 
‘“Parowan Harmonic Society.” 

At St. George, a fair is in progress for the special 
benefit of the party. Stuffs of cotton, wool, and linen; 





Pioneer Monument at Head of Main Street 
Salt Lake City 


(26'nuuc fé 
G MDG ae, rpg 


PP. #4 
od 





pele ele Oy Nee) tart LT Pee) 237 


skeins of yarn evenly spun out of soft dog-wool; ging- 
hams made in the country and colored with home-made 
madder,—all these are on exhibition in the basement of 
the town-hall, together with some machinery for mak- 
ing cotton, and also the usual homegrown fruits—figs, 
grapes, peaches, and pomegranates. 


During this trip, as on other similar occasions, Presi- 
dent Young’s keen eye is on the look-out for conditions 
that have improved since his last trip and for conditions 
that can be improved on this. Aj broken-down fence, ma- 
chinery left out in the weather, unpainted furniture, un- 
whitewashed houses, untidy premises, rubbish heaps, or 
the lack of sanitary necessities—these all furnished him 
with suggestions to offer the people. “Put your tools 
and machinery under a shed, brother, when you are not 
using them,” he says to a careless farmer ; and, to a house- 
wife who needs the advice, “Sister, don’t you know that 
whitewash will rid you of bed-bugs’” Round valley is 
complimented on having an orchard of sixty appletrees 
“three years from the bud, and in good condition,” and 
the people of Beaver with having “risen from the dust 
of slothful indifference” since the previous visit, and on 
manifesting “a spirit of improvement which has long 
slumbered.”” Parowan is praised for its enterprise in 
erecting a bowery, for its musical society, and for its gen- 
eral improvement since the last trip. 


President Young’s teachings on this occasion show his 
wide grasp of the situation and the far reaches of his prac- 
tical mind. To one town he tells how to plant a tree su 
that it will grow the best; to another, how to organize the 
people into a political government; to a third, he recom- 
wends that such-and-such means be adopted to make 


238 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


things more beautiful. And so on. Nothing escapes 


‘his sharp eye. 
QUESTIONS 


1. What qualities are necessary in a leader? 

2. Compare Joseph Smith and Brigham in respect to their 
traits of character? 

3. Can you tell why these two are so far the outstanding 
characters in the “Mormon” Church? » 

4. To what extent does what we are, figure in leadership? 
To what extent does our environment? Apply your conclusions 
to the two men under discussion. 


CUE AME SPEARS OOM 8! 
TIES THAT BIND 


Tourists who visit Salt Lake City—and there are tens 
of thousands of them every year from all parts of the 
Cunseity earth—are always curious about the temple 
about the on Temple Square. They are admitted 
temple. freely to the museum, to the assembly hall, 
and to the tabernacle with its far-famed organ; but they 
must be content to view the temple itself from the outside. 
“Is not the public admitted to it?” they ask. ‘What 1s 
the building for, anyway? What goes on in it, that visitors 
should not be allowed to enter? Why do the ‘Mormons’ 
erect temples, when no one else does?” These and a great 
many other questions are either on the lips or in the minds 
of all strangers who come to this famous spot. 

Without doubt the Latter-day Saints are a temple- 
building people. This cannot be said to the same degree 
AMS of any other people past or present. — lhe 
building ancient Jews built, or rebuilt, but one, that 
people. in Jerusalem; the Saints in this dispensation 
have erected eight—in Kirtland, Ohio; in Nauvoo, IJI- 
linois ; in St. George, Logan, Manti, Salt Lake City, Utah; 
in Alberta, Canada, and in Hawaii; and another is in 
course of constructoin in Arizona. And they will prob- 
ably continue to erect temples in various parts of America. 

Temples with the Latter-day Saints are not mere places 
of worship in the usual sense—meeting-houses, chapels, 
ie churches, synagogues, cathedrals. Rather 
temples they are sacred places, to which only those 
ais are admitted who are in good standing in 


240 OUR “CHURCH “AND PERU Pig 


the Church. To a Latter-day Saint there is no building 
quite so sacred and deserving of reverence as one of these 
temples. It stands to them as a symbol of time and eter- 
nity, uniting the living and the dead. And so they do 
not begrudge the great sums of money which it takes to 
erect these houses, to make them beautiful within and 
without, and to maintain them. Moreover, just as your 
home represents in your mind the unity of your family— 
those who are ‘alive now and all those who once lived in 
the place and are dead—so to the mind of the faithful 
Latter-day Saint the temple represents the unity of the 
human family, with God at the head as Father and all 
men as brothers. Back of these sacred buildings, there- 
fore, stands an idea that means much to the Saints. 


In a preceding chapter you have learned a number of 
things about man and his relation to God. You were 
What the told, for one thing, that the spirit of man, 
Church every man, is eternal, having existed before 
teaches ree ae : GHEE 
about man. it did in the flesh and will exist in the body 
after it shall have been raised from the dead. You were 
told also that God is the I‘ather of the spirits of all men, 
no matter what their color or race, or the age in which 
they live. These two facts are very important to bear in 
mind, because they are at the foundation of ‘‘Mormon- 
ism.” God being our Father, He is interested in our 
welfare. Also, man being eternal as to the thing about 
him that thinks and feels and acts, it 1s necessary that 
the laws given him by the Lord should apply to the 
whole of his life, not merely to that part of it which we 
call “mortal.” 

All those who have had this earth as their home niust 
obey the same fundamental laws in order to be saved. 


epeury ‘eyoqry ‘adwey ,uouIcH,, 





nae 





LSE Ase UND 243 


This is but fair and right. We should not 
expect the Lord to require some persons to 
do certain things, while He excused others 
from doing anything. God is a God of justice as well 
as of mercy. If He forms a plan of salvation for man- 
kind at all, it will be a plan that will apply equally to all 
men, and not only to some of them. The Lord has made 
just such a plan. We call it the gospel. 

This plan requires that you must believe in God, re- 
pent of your sins, be baptized for the remission of them, 
receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, and 
try to make your life conform to the laws of conduct 
established by the Lord. Everyone that belongs to this 
earth is expected to observe these requirements. He will 
be judged by his acceptance or rejection of them. 

But suppose he has not heard them? What then? For 
there have been long periods of time in the history of the 
ween Worldaewhen the gospel has not been 
comes of preached. Then, again, even when the gos- 
those who pel has been proclaimed there have been 
have not Ra ; 
Hearitine millions of people who have not heard it. 
gospel here? What is to become of them? Will they be 
judged by the gospel—something that has never been 
placed before them? 

Looking at it from one point of view, we might put 
the answer this way: The Prophet Joseph Smith tells 
S . . wus that to every law there is a blessing and 

alvation in : : ; : 
obedience that if we desire a given blessing we must 
to law. obey the law on which it is predicated. The 
opposite of this would be equally true—if we do not obey 
the law on which a certain blessing is predicated, we can- 
not hope to receive the blessing. Now, since these peo- 
ple have not obeyed the gospel, it cannot be expected that 


Same laws 
for all. 


244 OUR, CHURCH ‘AND: PEOPLE 


they will receive its blessings. They can be judged only 
by such laws as they understood and obeyed. You can- 
not expect to reap a harvest where you have planted no 
seed. 3 

But this is not the only answer to this question. It 1s 
not the real answer. For the Prophet Joseph Smith re- 
ceived revelations and visions from the Lord that throw 
a great deal of light on this subject of the dead. 

When death occurs here, the spirit does not go directly 
to a place called Heaven or Hell. It goes to a place 
called Paradise. This is the world of spirits. As -we 
have already learned, the spirit there is able to think and 
feel and act. Now, since this is so, the principles of the 
gospel, or the plan of salvation, are preached in the 
spirit world, as they are in the world of the flesh. 

Jesus, we are told, went into this spirit world and 
preached to the spirits there. You may remember that, 
when He was on the cross, He said to one of the thieves 
crucified with Him, “To-day shalt thou be with me in 
Paradise.” And the Apostle Peter tells us the reason why 
the gospel was preached to these spirits. It is that they 
might be judged as are men in the flesh. That is, they 
will be judged by the same laws or the same standard of 
life, so far as principles are concerned, and to the extent 
that they obey or receive these laws they may partake of 
the blessings on which these are predicated. 

To be sure, there are some things that are deemed 
necessary to salvation that cannot be done by spirits after 

death. One of these is baptism. And so it 
Rey eer has been arranged that baptism can be per- 
formed for those who have died by those 
who are still living in the flesh. If therefore, a person 
has not heard the gospel on the earth, or if he has heard 


a[dwiey uelemeyy 











TIES THAT BIND 247 


it and not been able to receive it, he is not lost utterly. 
His progress has indeed been stopped; the flow of bless- 
ings from obedience to the gospel has ceased for a time. 
But the justice and the mercy of God have rescued him - 
by means of a plan of salvation as broad as the human 
race. 

Now, the ordinance of baptism for the dead is per- 
formed in the temple, as also are other ordinances—mar- 
riage for time and eternity, sealings, and so on. There 
are many thousands of these ordinances performed in the 
temples every year. Especially is this true of ordinances 
for the dead—for those who are in the spirit world. The 
hearts of the fathers have turned in kindliness and bless- 
ing to the children. 

The authority to institute the work of salvation for the 
dead, together with that of gathering Israel, was given to 
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the 


Keys of ; ; hae 
ges Kirtland temple in 1836. After a vision 
restored. closed in which they “saw the Lord stand- 


ing upon the breastwork of the pulpit,” we are told, “the 
heavens were again opened unto us, and Moses appeared 
before us, and committed unto us the keys of the gather- 
ing’ of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the 
leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north. After 
this, Elias appeared, and committed the dispensation of 
the gospel of Abraham, saying, that in us and our seed, 
all generations after us should be blessed. After this 
vision had closed, another great and glorious vision burst 
upon us, for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven 
without tasting death, stood before us, and said: ‘Behold, 
the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the 
mouth of Malachi, testifying that he (Elijah) should be 
sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, 


248 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the 
children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten 
with a curse.’ ” 

Since the work in behalf of the departed is considered 
sacred and since only those who are in good standing in 
the Church perform this work, this is the reason why 
strangers are not alowed in the temples even as spectators. 

Many boys and girls now-a-days perform work for the 
dead in the temples. They are baptized for them, the boys 
for the men and the girls for the women, after which 
they are confirmed members of the Church for them. This 
work is often done by boys and girls in the Religion 
Classes of the Church. Would you like to do some of 
this work for those in your family who did not have the 
privilege in their life time of becoming members of the 
Church ? 


QUESTIONS 


1. How far have you planned your life’s work? Do you 
know now what your vocation is to be? The amount of education 
required? Where you are to live? What, in general, you are 
to do? 

2. To what extent do you think a complete plan such as is 
suggested above would help you in the details of your life of, 
say, seventy years? 

3. What is the general scheme that God has worked out for 
the salvation of man? 

4. How does this plan aid us, so far as we know it, in this or 
that particular, as against our not knowing of any “plan” at all? 


CE el eX OE LT 
BRANCHES THAT RUN OVER THE WALL 


By those who know, it is said of a certain well known 
and much loved Church leader, who is now dead, that 
for many weeks after he was born his 
dae y things mother carried him about, not in her arms 
as most babies are carried, but on a pillow, 
because he was so tiny. And yet when this same baby 
reached his full stature he was an upstanding man over 
six feet tall, weighing considerably more than two hun- 
dred pounds. During the years between these two pe- 
riods he had added every week a little to his height and 
weight, but in such a way that even those who loved him 
most could not observe the growth as it took place and 
could notice it only by comparing him now with what he 
was a little time back, so gradually had it occurred. 
That is the way of life everywhere. Things and per- 
sons and institutions grow. From the smallest of seeds 
that you can hardly see in the palm of the hand a plant 
may develop in this imperceptible manner till it 1s strong 
enough to resist the most terrific blasts from the canyon, 
as it shelters under its protecting boughs the wild fowls 
of heaven and the tired beasts of the field. The babe 
which now lies on its pillow a little red pulp so helpless 
and dumb and blind and unhearing that it would speedily 
die if it were not taken care of, presently becomes so 
powerful as to contro] not only millions of its fellow be- 
ings, but the very elements in the natural world. And the 
religion of Jesus, now so popular that the greatest men 
. and nations take pride in bearing its name, was none the 


250 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


less, not many centuries ago, the possession of but a few 
humble fishermen in the most despised province of the 
most despised nation in the ancient world. 
Transformations, too, have taken place in “Mormon- 

ism.” Almost one hundred years ago—in nineteen hun- 

dred thirty it will be exactly one hundred 
The Church years—six men, mostly unknown farmers 
grows also. - : : 

in an obscure village in western New York 
State, met round a table and organized themselves into 
a church, with an elder as a presiding officer. Since 
then that society has become known, for good or evil, in 
every civilized nation of the globe; it has established 
thriving communities in the waste places of the great 
West; and its teachings have brought spiritual peace and 
comfort to hundreds of thousands of men and women in 
almost all the ranks of life. Some of this growth we 
have had occasion to note as we have gone on with this 
history, but now it is time that we took a survey of this 
development so as to get a bird’s-eye view of the whole. 


Out of that little group of organizers came the first 
preacher of “Mormonism’”—Oliver Cowdery. But other 
preachers arose—not, to be sure, men 
ik early trained in schools of theology and oratory, 
urch. : 
but working men who could use the mother 
tongue in a simple, homely way to express their joy in the 
new faith, so that others might share that joy with them. 
From Fayette, where the organization took place, these 
men pushed out the four ways of the compass, preaching 
without any thought of earthly reward, and making con- 
verts wherever they went. Into various parts of New 
York State, into Pennsylvania and Ohio and the West, 
into Canada and the New England country these mission- 


RANCHES THAT RUN OVER THE WALL 251 


aries journeyed during those first years, and after that 
into England and Scotland and Ireland, bringing back 
from everywhere converts as sheaves from the wheat 
field. And urged on, like the ancient apostles of Jesus, 
by an uncontrollable desire to spread the truth, they left 
their work to embark in the new adventure of the ministry. 

There were times when the stress of outer circumstances 
interfered somewhat with this missionary enterprise. In 
Ohio and Missouri and Illinois the opposi- 


Under hard. ire 
outer tion of evil-minded men compelled them for 
conditions. 4 time to give attention to safe-guarding 


themselves from mob violence, and in Utah and the West 
the task of obtaining food and clothing and shelter forced 
their interest into the channels of material things. But 
not even under these hard conditions did the Saints lose 
sight of their duty to proclaim the New Revelation to the 
world. _ For the mission to England, as we have seen, 
was undertaken in the darkest days of Ohio and Missouri, 
and a new stimulus was given to missionary work during 
the early struggles in Utah. 

After fourteen years of preaching abroad and at home 
the number of Church members had increased from the 
original six to perhaps twenty-five thousand. Of these 
the great majority were in Nauvoo and vicinity, on ac- 
count of the doctrine of gathering; but several thousand 
were in England. Then occurred the death of the Prophet, 
when the attention of the Church leaders was directed to 
the removal of the Saints to the West. That event, as you 
already know, demanded and received almost the entire 
thought of every one in the Church, at least till the people 
were established in the new home. Before this happened, 
however, the leaders of the Church took up again, with 
renewed vigor, the burden of missionary work, which had 


202 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


been laid down for a time. And so in the eighteen hun- 
dred and fifties new missions were opened and branches 
of the Church organized in them. [From that time to the 
present the “Mormon” people have taken very seriously 
the task imposed upon them of preaching the gospel to 
“every creature” and of warning the nations of the earth 
that “the hour of God’s judgment is at hand.” 


Nothing can show this fact better than the following 
contrast: When Joseph Smith died, in 1844, but three 
missions had been opened outside the United 
A contrast. tates and Canada. These were the British 
Isles, the Society Islands, and Australia. In 
the first of these, in one year, the number of converts 
rose to several thousand, not counting those who had 
immigrated to Nauvoo. At a general conference of the 
Church held at Salt Lake City in August, 1852, one hun- 
dred six elders were called on missions—six to the United 
States, four to the British Provinces, two to British 
Guiana, four to the West Indies, thirty-nine to Great 
Britain, one to France, seven to Germany, two to 
Gibraltar, one to Denmark, two to Norway, nine to Cal- 
cutta and Hindostan, four to China, three to Siam, three 
to South Africa, ten to Australia, and nine to Hawaii. 
The Italian mission had been opened by Apostle 
Lorenzo Snow, the Scandinavian by Apostle Erastus 


Snow, the French and German missions by 
Openings of 


early Apostle John Taylor, the Hawaiian mission 
missions. by Elder George Q. Cannon, who was then 


a mere boy but who was doing a man’s work as a mis- 
sionary. Apostle Ezra C. Rich, about the same time, 
established a mission in Lower California. 

As a result of this vigorous pushing of missionary enter- 


RANCH ESV PIA RUN OVER THE WALE: ..253 


prise there was a great increase in the number of con- 
verts. This was especially the case in the British mission. 
As an instance of this rapid increase in membership the 
work of Dan Jones may be cited. At the time he was 
appointed to preside over the Welsh mission only he and 
his wife were members there. In less than a year he had 
baptized seven hundred persons. . 

Nor has this missionary work been allowed to lag in 
later years. The United States has been divided into 
Mieeionary several missions, such as the Eastern States 
work in mission, the Southern States mission, and 
later years. = ¢y on, in each of which there has been con- 
stantly at work relay groups of elders, distributing tracts 
and books, preaching, and conversing with people on the 
principles of the gospel. Lately the Canadian mission 
has been reopened, and it promises to be a source of in- 
crease of membership in the Church. In 1878, Apostle 
Moses Thatcher opened a-mission in Old Mexico, where 
in later years a number of settlements were made by 
“Mormon” people from the United States. 

Meantime missionary work in the Pacific Islands has 
been pushed since the first days of Utah history, result- 
ing in many thousands of natives joining the Church. 
The Scandinavian countries have proved a fruitful source 
of converts to “Mormonism,” perhaps next after the 
United States and the British Isles. In other European 
countries, like France, Italy, and Russia, the gospel has 
not made much headway in this generation. The same 
thing is true in China and in Japan. The Japanese mis- 
sion was opened by President Heber J. Grant in 1901; 
but, although elders have been there for the last twenty- 
three years, so little progress has been made that they 
have been withdrawn temporarily. 


254 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Of late years a movement has been started to carry on 
a missionary work at home. It is designed primarily to 
Home reach non-“Mormons” in the communities 
missionary Where there are regularly organized wards. 
work. The work is intrusted chiefly to the quorums 
of seventy, whose duty it is to preach the gospel to “the 
world’”’—that is, to those not of the faith, whether at home 
or abroad. Men are called to this labor for the greater 
part of a year, they visit the homes of all non-members of 
the Church in their districts, who will receive them, and 
they converse with the people on the principles of the gos- 
pel, leave tracts and other literature with them and invite 
them to attend the ward services. There is every pros- 
ipect that, as the movement grows, it will prove the source 
of many converts to “Mormonism,” and that, too, at a 
far less cost both in time and money than the foreign 
missionary work. In one ward in Salt Lake City one year 
twenty-six persons, nearly all adults, were thus brought 
into the Church, and in all the wards, in 1922, five hun- 
dred seventy-six persons were converted in this way. 

The Latter-day Saints have thus conducted a mission- 
ary work on a scale of which we have no record in any 
other age or in any other church. There have been times 
when the Church has had two thousand men and women 
at the same time in the foreign service. These all leave 
whatever employment they may have been engaged in— 
teaching, farming, merchandising, whatnot—and spend 
two years or more among strangers preaching an unpopu- 
lar faith, paying their own expenses while away from 
home. Their only compensation lies in the consciousness 
that they are performing a service to their fellow men and 
in the individual growth, intellectual and spiritual, which 
they experience in the meantime—an experience that few 


BRANGH ES SLHATARUN, OVER THES WALL = 255 


who have had it would exchange for any other they may 
have had. Nowhere else in the history of religion can we 
find a like sacrifice and devotion on the part of so many 
men and women for a church. 
As “Mormonism” has grown in its membership, it has 
needed more and more territory in which to expand. At 
first the little town of Kirtland, in Ohio, 
Territory was sufficient for the whole membership of 
eeeuried the Church. But now most of the popula- 
tion of the great State of Utah is “Mormon,” not to speak 
of thousands in other States of the Union, in Canada and 
Mexico, in England and Germany and the Scandinavian 
countries, and on the sea islands. Stakes—which are to 
be viewed as permanent locations of the Saints—have been 
established in Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, California, 
Canada, and Mexico. A temple has been erected in Can- 
ada, and another is in course of construction in Arizona. 
All this means that “Zion is growing,” as the song puts 
it. And it will continue to grow till in it the prediction of 
the Prophet Daniel is fulfilled: And in the last days 
“shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shail 
never be destroyed, and the Kingdom shall not be left to 
other people; and it shall break in pieces the iron, the 
brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold.” 


QUESTIONS 


1. Why is it that an organization, whether civil or social or 
religious, grows? 

2. Is this growing on its part a good thing or a bad? 

3. What part of the Church implies change when it grows, 
and what part does not? 

4. Give briefly the growth of the Church (a) in number of 
members, (b) in territory occupied, (c) in missionary work, 
(d) in organization. 


GELLAR TE Rep XOS be 
HOW THE CHURCH IS GOVERNED 


When a group of boys or girls form a society among 
themselves, the first thing they do after talking about the 


matter and deciding to organize, is to choose 
Need of 


Sark some officers and to draw up some rules to 
organization, 


govern them, so that everything shall go 
on in an orderly manner without confusion. And this is 
absolutely necessary to the well-being of the society. In 
a small group like this a very few officers and by-laws 
are sufficient for every purpose. But in a great society 
like the American nation, for instance, the organization 
hecomes extremely complex, with many thousands of offi- 
cials and enough rules to occupy many volumes in the 
telling. 

Every group of persons with a common purpose must 
of necessity have an organization of some kind. It could 
not get very far if it did not have one. Now, the Church 
consists of such a group of men and women, and it has 
a very definite object to attain. That object is, in brief, 
to bring about and maintain personal and social right- 
eousness on the earth. And so, in order to attain its pur- 
pose most effectively, it has an organization, with officers 
and rules of conduct. 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is 
generally recognized as one of the most effective organ- 
The Church izations of any kind in the world. Professor 
a great Richard T. Ely, of the University of Wis- 
organization. consin, said of it before the World War that 
so far as he could judge from what he had seen, “the or- 





President John Taylor 


17 





HOW THE CHURCH IS GOVERNED 259 


ganization of the ‘Mormons’ is the most nearly perfect 
piece of social mechanism with which I have ever, in any 
way, come in contact, excepting alone the German army. 
The ‘Mormons,’ indeed, speak of their whole social organ- 
ization as an army, the reserve being those at home, and 
the fighting force being the missionaries in the field. We 
have faith, authority, obedience operating through this 
marvelous social mechanism, and touching life at all 
points.” And he regards this organization as the “secret 
of the economic success which has been achieved by the 
‘Mormons.’ ”’ 

Let us look at the organization of the Church, begin- 
ning with that part which is most familiar to us, to see 
how it answers to this description of a social mechanism 
of Professor Ely’s. 


Are you visited in your home, about once a month, by 
two men who introduce themselves as “teachers”? They 
come in of an evening. Your father or 
Ward mother calls into the room all the members 
teachers. : 
of the family and asks the teachers to take 
charge. This they proceed to do. Maybe they will ask 
the family to kneel with them in prayer, or to join with 
them in singing a hymn or sacred song, after which they 
will tall with the family on some religious topic of gen- 
eral interest, asking and answering questions. Their pur- 
pose in calling on you, besides fulfilling a duty which 
they have been requested to perform, 1s to watch over 
your family in a religious way, to strengthen their faith 
in the Church, to find out if there is any need, either 
physical or spiritual, that the Church can supply, and in 
general to encourage them in the performance of their 
religious duties. If any difficulties arise between your 


260 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


family and another and you should require the services 
of a third party, these are the men you would be most 
likely to call upon for help in the settlement of them. 
Your family, however, is not the only one on whom 
these teachers call. In your neighborhood there may be 
six or eight others whom they visit, not this evening per- 
haps, but on other evenings. This group of households, 
from their closeness to one another, is termed a “block.” 
Nor are these two men the only teachers in your ward, 
for, as a matter of fact, your whole town is divided into 
“blocks,” to each of which are assigned two such teach- 
ers. If you care, in imagination, to follow each pair of 
teachers to the several homes they visit, you will find 
them doing in each of them about what they did in yours 
and in much the same way. And if you care to follow 
them still further, you will find them some evening, when 
all their visiting has been done, meeting together with 
the bishopric in the ward chapel and making reports of 
their work—the number of families called on, the con- 
dition in which they found them, and so on. 
And so we come now to a higher group, the ward, and 
a greater authority, the bishopric, than the block and the 
teachers in the block. The ward, as already 
The ward. suggested, consists of all the blocks of Lat- 
ter-day Saint homes in a given section of 
the population. It is presided over by a bishop and his 
two counselors, all of whom are high priests. They have 
jurisdiction not only in such temporal matters as tithing, 
fast offerings, and the care of the poor and the sick, but 
also in such spiritual concerns as baptism, confirmation, 
and the conduct of sacrament meetings. They serve with- 
out salary. Every activity in the ward, whether under 
the direct supervision of the auxiliary associations or the 





President Wilford Woodruff 


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HOW THE CHURCH IS GOVERNED 263 


ward proper, is within the authority of the bishopric. In 
the ward also is a clerk, who takes charge, under the 
bishopric, of the records,—membership, baptisms, con- 
firmations, and so on. Once every year a conference of 
all the members of the ward is held, at which all the offi- 
cers with whom they have anything to do, either directly 
or indirectly, are placed before the people for their vote. 


Maybe you have gone to the tabernacle in your own 

or another town for a larger meeting than could take 

place in your ward chapel. If so, you have 

The stake, attended what is called a “stake conference.” 

There, perhaps on the stand, you may have 

recognized not only the bishopric of your own ward but 

the bishoprics of other wards also, adjacent to yours. The 

wards over which all these preside have been grouped in 
a stake. 

A “stake” is a fixed Church organization, as its name 
suggests, with a permanent, or what at least promises to 
be a permanent, membership. This is most likely by way 
of contrast with a “mission,’’ which may, like the Japan- 
ese, be temporary, because its membership “emigrates to 
Zion.” Stakes, like wards, may vary in size, according 
to the ease with which the wards in a group can be reached 
by officers. The tendency of late has been toward small 
units, both in ward and stake organizations. ‘There are 
now (1925) ninety-five stakes, with an average of fewer 
than ten wards to the stake. 

A stake is presided over by three high priests—a presi- 
dent and two counselors. They have full authority within 
their sub-division of the Church. To them, all the bishop-_ 
rics in their group are responsible directly, together with 
all the priesthood in all the wards of this group. Every 


264 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


three months the stake holds such a conference as has been 
referred to, at which the officers of the Church and the 
stake are presented and such business transacted as per- 
tains to the stake, and at which also there is preaching by 
the stake and general authorities. Each stake has a clerk 
and also one or more “patriarchs,” whose duty it is to 
give individual blessings, like Jacob of old. 
In addition to the presidency, the clerk, and the patri- 
archs, there is in each stake a “high council’ of twelve 
high priests. This is a judicial body chiefly. 
The high That is to say, its members as such sit as a 
fe ate court to try cases involving membership in 
the Church. But besides this office of trying cases, the 
high council acts as.a kind of advisory board to the 
presidency of the stake, where such measures as touch the 
interests of the stake, brought before it by the presiding 
officer, are discussed. 
The ward and stake officers of whom we have spoken 
preside over units that are found thus far only in Utah 
and surrounding states where the body of 
Missions. the Church is located—at home, that is to 
say. Abroad, there are other units. There 
is, first of all, the branch, corresponding to the ward, in 
charge of a presiding elder, who may be a local member 
or a traveling missionary. Then, where a number of 
these branches are grouped together, there is a “confer- 
ence,’ in charge of a missionary. And, finally, there is 
the “mission,” which consists of a group of conferences, 
under the supervision of an apostle or some one appointed 
by the general authorities of the Church. 


Now, the ninety-three stakes at home and the twenty- 
three missions abroad, with their nine hundred seventy- 





President Lorenzo Snow 





HOWi THE CHURCH IS GOVERNED 267 


Presiding eight wards and independent branches, go 
officers of to make up the Church of Jesus Christ of 
the Church. | atter-day Saints. The Church as a whole 
is presided over by twenty-six men—a quorum of three 
called the First Presidency, a Council of Twelve Apostles, 
a Presiding Patriarch, a Council of Seven Presidents of 
Seventy, and a Presiding Bishopric of three. 

To take up these officers in the reverse order in which 
they are named above: The Presiding Bishopric, as the 
name suggests, has charge of the temporal matters within 
the jurisdiction of the ward bishops. The First Council 
of Seventy oversees the concerns of the two hundred 
eighteen quorums of Seventy in the Church, whose duties 
are chiefly to carry the gospel to the world at home and 
abroad. The Presiding Patriarch, as the name implies, 
directs the labors of the patriarchs scattered throughout 
the various stakes of the Church, and also bestows bless- 
ings on those who seek him for such. The Council of 
Apostles are the “traveling counselors” of the Church and 
“special witnesses” and have charge of the missionary 
work throughout the world and in the stakes of Zion, 
acting, of course, under the direction of the First Presi- 
dency, just as the First Council of Seventy acts under the 
direction of the Apostles. Finally, the First Presidency 
of the Church stands at the head of all the work of the 
Lord on the earth, whether material or spiritual. 


Such is the “marvelous social mechanism” of which 
Professor Ely speaks in the passage quoted above. It is 
something like the governmental machinery of the United 
States, with its divisions into city, county, state, and na- 
tion. Only, in the case of the Church, there is a beautiful 
dove-tailing of its various parts which is absent in the re- 


268 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


lation between the different parts of the political govern- 
ment of our nation. For, in the Church, every officer, 
from block teacher to apostle, yields obedience religiously 
to his superior officer. Thus the President of the Church 
is able in a little while to get in touch with the mempbets 
of any ward, or of all the wards, in order to communicate 
to them any idea he may wish them to know. Or it is 
like a complicated machine every part of which works in 
perfect agreement with every other part, to the pro- 
ducing of that for which the machine was intended. 

Of course, everything depends on how these various 
officers do their work. As you know, citizens in our 
Teyotana nation rely to a very great extent on the 
service the policeman, the sheriff, and the United 
ideal. States marshall for their safety, peace, and 
protection. But in the Church there can be no threats 
or force of any sort. The supreme law there is the law of 
Love. Said the Prophet Joseph Smith in the early days 
of “Mormonism:” “The rights of the priesthood are in- 
separably connected with the powers of heaven, and the 
powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only 
upon the principles of righteousness. That they may be 
conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake 
to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambi- 
tion, or to exercise control, or dominion, or compulsion, 
upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of 
unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw them- 
selves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is 
withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood, or authority of that 
man. * * * No power or influence can or ought to 
be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persua- 
sion, by long suffering, by gentleness, and meekness, and 
by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge,. 


HOW THE CHURCH IS GOVERNED 269 


which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, 
and without guile.” 

Said Joseph Smith once, when he was asked how he 
managed to govern so many people of diverse nation- 
alities, “I teach them correct principles, and they govern 
themselves.”’ And this is true to-day, as it was then. Every 
member of the Church is supposed to live up to his great- 
est light. This is the highest form of human government 
-——qa control from within, rather than from without. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Show, by means of some machine you may be familiar 
with, the inter-relations of its various parts. 

2. Show how, in a factory (Ford’s automobile shops, for 
instance) how the same principle of organization may be applied 
to human labor. 

3. Explain how it is that men can accomplish more through 
organization than without—in an army, or in a school, or in the 
church. 

4. How would you show that the “Mormon” Church is a 
wonderful organization ? 


CHAPTER XXXV 
CLIMBING THE GREATER HEIGHTS 


A suggestive story is told of a man in Oklahoma who 
was very poor but who might have been very rich. 

He had inherited a piece of land from his father, on 
which he had lived in poverty with his family for many 
Thettaan years. Much of it could not for various 
who did not reasons be tilled, and what could be often 
know. produced but an indifferent crop under his 
indolent hands. And so he tacked up a “For Sale” sign 
on the front porch. If only he could sell the farm, he 
would move to Dashville, a few miles away, and get a 
job at the oil-wells there. 


One day a portly gentleman in leather puttees came to 
the place. Walking about on the farm with its owner, 
he became particularly interested in a small stream, which, 
rising from a spring, flowed sluggishly through the land. 
He stooped down to examine the water, cupping some 
of it in his hand for closer inspection. 


“That ain’t fit to drink,’ explained the owner, misun- 
derstanding the act; “it’s too oily.” 


The place was sold on the spot. It was a disgracefully 
low price to take for a family heirloom, but, after all, was 
it not good riddance? 

Six months later the man who had once owned the farm 
happened to be in the neighborhood. It presented the 
appearance of a veritable forest of derricks, and the 
gentleman in puttees was reaping several fortunes out 
of it in oil, 





President Joseph F. Smith 


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CLIMBING THE GREATER HEIGHTS 273 


“T knew about that oil all the time,” said the man re- 
eretfully, “but I didn’t know it was worth anything!” 

Riches are of two kinds—riches of the pocket and 
riches of the soul. While we cannot get along very well 
as things are constituted at present without 
more or less of the first kind of wealth, still 
. the second sort is vastly more essential both 
in this world and in the next. Riches of the spirit are the 
only sort we are able to take with us when we die. 

But spiritual wealth is often as hard to see as material 
wealth. Indeed, many have found it even more difficult 
to see. And certainly blindness in this respect is far 
more blameworthy than in the other, partly because spirit- 
ual wealth is of greater value and partly because it is 
easier to obtain by all of us. Also it is not so fleeting, 
once we have got hold of it. 

Do you know what it is that constitutes this higher 
wealth, what it may do for you, and how you may be able 
to acquire it where you are? 


Two kinds 
of riches. 


{ 
i 


In the year 1829, before the Church was organized, a 

young man named John Whitmer, brother of David Whit- 

mer, was given a revelation through the 

What is of = Prophet Joseph Smith. It appears that he 
most worth. ; 

3 had been anxious to know what “would be 
of most worth” to him in life. And this was the answer 
he received from the Savior himself: ‘Behold, I say unto 
you, that the thing which will be of most worth unto you, 
will be to declare repentance unto this people, that you 
may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in 
the Kingdom of my Father.” : 

If we stop to look into this passage, we shall find that 
in the last analysis it is a call for leadership in service. 
18 


274 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Always “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Any 
one can prove this by putting the precept into practice in 
his life. Not what we do for ourselves, but what we do 
for others, brings us happiness. At bottom it is the Golden 
Rule of Love. But service demands more or less of 
leadership. To be a leader requires that we love people, 
that we can mix easily with them, that we have ideas to 
give out, that we can lead the way somewhere. So when 
we desire to be leaders in the world, we are wishing for 
the greatest good, provided we are thinking all the time 
of others and not of ourselves. 

Now, let us see what there is in the place where we 
are that we may lay hold of to develop this kind of leader- 
ship, so that we may know how to make the most of what 
we have. 

{ 

Naturally, the first place to look for help in this direc- 
tion is the place nearest us—our home. For we must not 

repeat the experience of the knight in the 
The home. ancient tale, who left home as a young man 

to find the Holy Cup out of which our 
Savior drank and came back an old white-haired man, 
only to find it in his own house, where it had been all 
the years. 

Activity in the home, then, is the first keyword. The 
leader must learn the lesson of obedience as well as of 
command. Therefore, the children in the home must be 
willing to subject their desires to the greater wisdom of 
the parents, as being based on a wider and deeper expe- 
rience of life than their own. Then there is the oppor- 
tunity to be helpful in and about the house. Burdens may 
be lifted from the father by the boys and from the mother 
by the girls—in just what ways must be left for each to 


CLIMBING THE GREATER HEIGHTS ato 


decide. The willingness to help is everything. The gen- 
eral spirit of the home, whether pleasant and helpful or 
depressing and selfish, lies almost as much in the hands 
of the children as of the parents. Moreover, there are 
religious duties in the home that can be attended to by 
all members of the family, such as asking a blessing on 
the food, prayer, Sabbath observance, and so on. In short, 
the home is a nation in small, with the parents at the 
head, the children as subjects, and the simple rules of 
good behavior as laws. And good subjects of the home 
are likely to be graduated into good subjects of the state, 
as well as into men and women of character. The home 
therefore, is the very heart of our life here below. 


At the same time we are forming character in the home 

and preparing for leadership in the greater world with- 

out, we are repeating these educational pro- 

The Church. cesses in the Church, only on a larger scale. 

Our Church offers good and abundant op- 

portunities for the development of leadership in service. 

In fact, we are perfectly within the truth when we say 

that there is no other community in the world where 

such opportunities are so plentiful on every hand. Let 
us recall the most important of these. 

There are, first, the auxiliary organizations—the Pri- 
mary, the Religion Class, the Improvement Associations, 
the Sunday School, and the Relief Society. These 
offer opportunities for development not only in theology 
and religion, but also in other important activities. 

To learn about God is regarded by most thoughtful 
people as the first duty of man. Surely it is the core of 
— jife’s true business. To get the Lord’s point of view of 
life, if we can do so, is like ascending a high tower and 


276 QUR” GHURGH UVAND PHORM 


looking out over a great city, for we may then see life as 
a whole and not be hampered in our vision by too close 
attention to this or that detail because it happens to inter- 
est us. Some one has said that mankind has walked 
down the ages on two legs, the economic and the religious. 

If this be true—and no one will dispute the statement— 
it is ridiculous for an intelligent person to be concerned 
alone with getting a living and not to think at all of how 
to make a life. Besides, wisdom consists in knowing a 
great deal on widely diverse subjects and in acting upon 
that knowledge—being intelligent, in a word,—and since 
theology and religion give us an additional body of facts, 
this increases our power to thread difficult situations in 
life. 

But, as we said a moment ago, these organizations af- 
ford opportunities for development in other ways than 
what may be classed as strictly religious. 

One of these is singing. A noted German music teacher, 
who had spent many years in the United States, declared 

once that the real musical center of Amer- 
Singing. ica is, not Chicago nor Boston nor San 

Francisco nor even New York, but Salt 
Lake City. And he added, “I do not mean by this that 
the place has the greatest vocalists or instrumentalists, but 
rather that it has more general appreciation of music than 
any other American city of the same size. This appre- 
ciation is due to the large number of choirs there—good 
church choirs. For Salt Lake with its tens of thousands 
has more of these than any other city in the United States 
with its hundreds of thousands.” Our young people have 
not merely the opportunity of singing in one of the regu- 
lar Church choirs, but also of joining the choruses of the | 
auxiliary groups. 





President Heber J. Grant 





- CLIMBING THE GREATER HEIGHTS 279 


Another of these activities is public speaking in its 
various forms—declamation, preaching, debating, and 
dramatics. The average “Mormon” has a 
‘noticeable ease in thinking and speaking on 
his feet, and this is true not of the men 
only but of the women as well. This ease comes from 
the abundant practice which is afforded to every one in 
the organizations of the Church and to the missionary 
service which most of the men and many of the women 
have performed at home and abroad.. The Improvement 
Associations also conduct frequent contests in story-tell- 


Public 
speaking. 


ing, debating, orations, and dramatics, in which any one 
may participate who is a member of either organization. 


Then there is the foreign missionary work. A prom- 
inent man in Salt Lake City, a non-“Mormon,” is send- 
ing his two boys, one ten and ‘the other 
twelve, to the Sunday school and other meet- 
ings of the Church, because he expects to 
have them sent on missions as soon as they finish their 


Missionary 
work. 


high school education. And his reason for doing so 1s 
that he believes they can obtain more growth of mind 
there than they could in any other way and at the same 
time “be anxiously engaged in a good cause.” This 1s 
doubtless true. Any ward in the Church can show you 
men who have left home for a mission mere boys, timid 
and inexperienced, and have returned mature men of 
ability and force of character, having acquired a leader- 
ship they could not have obtained under any other cir- 
cumstances in the same time. This is owing no doubt to 
the stress under which they are compelled to meet strange 
people in various walks of life, to acquire a body of ideas 
to converse upon with them, and to practice the art of 


280 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


expressing these ideas with clearness and a degree of 
force. 
Socially, too, many opportunities are offered through 

the Church organizations for growth. One of the best 

ways of seeing the value of our social activ- 
Social __ ities is to imagine them altogether absent 
opportunities. ‘ 

from our lives. What should we do, for 
instance, if dancing were forbidden in the Church as in 
some others, if the only gatherings we could have were 
those at chapel of a Sunday, and if there were no other 
ways provided by which we might enjoy one another's 
companionship? Life would be almost intolerable for 
all of us, would it not? As it is, however, the Church 
is providing such recreations for its young people as are 
wholesome—dancing, games, athletic contests such as 
basket-ball and base-ball, canyon trips, and parties of 
various kinds. 


Not only in the activities of these organizations and in 
the foreign missionary service, but also in the general 
religious meetings and the priesthood quo- 


Teachings , ; 
of the rums of the Church, teachings are given 
Church. that make powerfully for the best leadership. 


There are teachings concerning the care of the body. 
A good, clean body is necessary to perfect leadership any- 
where. In the revelations of the Lord to 

nee of the Joseph Smith we are admonished to retire 
to our bed early that we “may not be 

weary’ and to rise betimes that both the body and the 
mind “may be invigorated.” And in the Word of Wis- 
dom we are warned against the harmful effects of tea 
and coffee, tobacco, strong drinks, and the excessive use 
of meat, with the promise that if we “remember to keep 


CLIMBING THE GREATER HEIGHTS 281 


and do these sayings and walk in obedience to the com- 
mandments,” we “shall find wisdom and great treasures 
of knowledge, even hidden treasures,’ and further that 
we “shall run and not be weary and shall walk and not 
faint.” 7 
There are also teachings respecting the mind. “The 
glory of God,” we are informed in the Prophet’s writ- 
ings, “is intelligence.’ Not only in the other 
The mind. world but in this too, “a man is saved no 
faster than he gains knowledge.” For “it 
is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance.”  In- 
deed, “whatever principles of intelligence we attain unto 
in this life, will rise with us in the resurrection; and if a 
person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life 
through his diligence and obedience than another, he will 
have so much the advantage in the world to come.”’ Where 
could we find a more stimulating thought than the idea 
advanced by the Prophet Joseph, that “God was once as 
we are now’ and that we may aspire to become what 
He is? 
And then, finally, there are the teachings concerriing 
the basic moral virtues. No man can be great who is not 
also good. That is why Napoleon is not 
The moral = ysually put into the same class with our 
Metre Washington and Lincoln. He spent his 
whole life in satisfying his ambition to be great; they, in 
establishing a nation where their fellow men might enjoy 
peace and freedom and social justice. No community 
could place a higher value than do the Latter-day Saints 
upon the personal qualities of patience, industry, cour- 
age, fortitude, honesty, truthfulness, reverence, virtue, 
brotherly love. And these standard qualities have been 
pretty generally exemplified in their lives year by year. 


282 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


The “Mormon” Church, therefore, becomes to its mem- 
bers a great educational institution, covering all the activ- 
ities of life. “If there is anything lovely, or praiseworthy. 
or of good report, we seek after these things.” 


Of course, merely to be able to see an opportunity is 
of no value in itself. It must be laid hold of and set 
Something to work in one’s active life. It was of no 
besides avail for the farm owner in the incident with 
seeing : : . 
necessary. which we began this chapter to see the oil 
on the surface of the stream that flowed through his land. 
In order to profit by the fact, it was necessary for men 
to drill for the oil, to pipe it to the refineries, and there 
to prepare it for the gasoline engine. So it is everywhere 
in life. Opportunities must be firmly grasped, as well as 
seen. We must make our lives with what we have at 
hand, and not misdirect our energies in dreaming of thing's 
utterly beyond our reach. 


QUESTIONS 


1. Relate an instance you know of or have read about to 
show how some one either missed an opportunity or availed him- 
self of one. 

2. Point out things in your own environment that may prove 
an opportunity to you. 

3. How, may one develop a sense for opportunities? Has 
one’s natural inclinations’ (say, for music, literature, mechanics) 
anything to do with seeing opportunities? 


(She Ry XOXO 
HOW YOU MAY KNOW THE TRUTH 


On the first Sunday in every month, as you know, 
your class holds an exercise at which you are expected 
to bear your testimony. How many times 
On bearing on these occasions have you done so? If 
testimony. : 
you have not borne your testimony at all, 
can you tell why you have not? And if you have, to 
what have you testified? 

What is a testimony? 

To testify to anything is to bear witness of it. If 
you were present at an automobile accident where some 
one was injured and that person brought suit for dam- 
ages against the one who was thought to be the cause 
of the accident, you would most likely be called upon 
as a witness by the court where the case was to be tried. 
But on the witness stand, when you got there, you would 
be allowed to testify only to what you actually knew 
concerning the accident. The judge would not know- 
ingly permit you to bear witness to what you did not see 
or hear or were otherwise aware of through the evidence 
of your senses. Your mere opinion he would rule out 
altogether. So a testimony, in the general meaning of 
the word, is an expression by any one as to what he has 
somehow experienced concerning a given thing. 

We often speak of a “testimony of the gospel.” By this 
phrase we mean an expression of what the person bear- 

ing the testimony has experienced concern- 
What a _ ing the truth of the principles of revealed 
testimony Is. Te : : 

religion. Thus, in the ward fast meetings, 
you may have heard older persons say they know the 


284 OUR} CHURGH CAND ~PReOCuE 


gospel to be true, or they know Jesus Christ to be our 
Redeemer, or they know Joseph Smith to be a prophet. 
They mean by this that somehow what they have expe- 
rienced has given them the right to say truthfully that 
they have a knowledge of what they testify to. Prop- 
erly speaking, then, we can bear testimony only to what 
we have experienced. 

Sometimes young persons say they caemet bear a testi- 
mony for the reason that they do not have any, although. 
they would like to be able to bear one. Let us look into 
this matter a little. 

Religion, like most other things, is composed of many 
small units. The gospel is in fact made up of a number 

of ideas that are more or less applicable in 
Small units our daily life. To the extent, therefore, that 
of religion. : : 

we have a testimony as to the value of each 
of these ideas separately we have a testimony of the gos- 
pel, which is the sum of these ideas. 

A simple instance will make this clear. 

A little boy was once sent out to the chicken-coop by 
his mother to bring in the eggs. There were seven, and 

he started with them to the house. On the 
Illustration. way he dropped one and broke it. To his 

mother’s question as to how many eggs the 
hens had laid the day before he answered, “Six, Mama.” 
And there the matter ended so far as she was concerned. 
But not so with him. All that day at school his thoughts 
came back to the incident. He had told a lie, when he 
should have told the truth. He had clearly mis-stated 
the facts. There was only one thing for him to do, he 
decided over and over again, if he would have any peace 
of mind, and that was to square himself with his con- 
science by telling his mother the truth. And this he did 


HOW YOU MAY KNOW THE TRUTH 285 


when school was out. Of course, his mother was glad, 
forgave him, and trusted him even more than she had 
done. ! 
Now, this boy possessed an absolute and perfect knowl- 

edge that truthfulness is a correct principle. He had 

experienced the feeling of pain and sorrow 
Comment on that comes from telling a falsehood and also 
the incident. 3 . ; 

the opposite feeling of joy that comes from 
telling the truth. No person, however old or intelligent 
or experienced, could have a better knowledge of this 
particular principle than that little boy. And so he 
could stand up and say with the utmost confidence that 
he knew truthfulness to be a correct principle. He could 
go even further than that. Since truthfulness is one of 
the cardinal principles of the gospel, he could say, “I 
know the gospel is true to this extent, for I have expe- 
rienced it in my life.” 


But what is true of this particular principle is true also 
of other principles of the gospel, of all of them, in fact— 
honesty, the word of wisdom, tithing, Sabbath observ- 
ance, virtue, and the rest. One’s testimony is strong in 
proportion to the depth of one’s experience; it is broad 
in proportion to the number and variety of those expe- 
riences. So, if it were in your power to test out in prac- 
tice all the principles of the gospel known to us now, 
you would have a testimony in its completeness, in its 
fulness. This is what Jesus meant when he said that if 
any one would do God’s will, he should know whether 
or not the doctrines are true. As you taste anything to 
know whether it is sour or sweet, so you apply an idea 
to know whether it is true or not. “By their fruit shall 
ye know them.” 


286 OUR ‘CHURCH: AND PEOPLE 


That is one way to obtain a testimony of the gospel— 
to test a teaching out in our experience. There is an- 
other way to arrive at the same result—to have the truth 
revealed to us directly. 

There is such a thing as a spiritual experience, just as 
there is a social experience or a financial experience. In 

other words, the Spirit of the Lord may bear 
Spiritual testimony to our spirit that something is or 
experiences. . : : : 

is not true. And this experience is no less 
definite and certain than the one where we prove a thing 
by seeing it practiced. 

The late President Joseph I*. Smith, when he was alive, 
often referred to an experience of his as a boy, in which 
he obtained his testimony of the*gospel. One time he 
rose in a meeting to bear a testimony without really feel- 
ing that he had one. Nevertheless he was impressed to 
attempt to bear it. While on his feet, the Spirit of God 
came upon him, under whose influence he bore a power- 
ful testimony. He always felt, he used to say, that from 
this moment on he could bear witness consistently to 
the truth of the gospel, that he could say, “I know.” The 
Holy Spirit had borne witness directly to his spirit, had 
given him a spiritual experience. 

This sort of thing has been rather common in our own 
dispensation. While Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery 

were translating the Book of Mormon the 
Revelation. Lord gave Oliver a revelation through the 

Prophet telling him how he was to know 
whether a certain thing was right or not. “You must 
ask me if it be right,” said the Lord, “and if it is right 
I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you ; there- 
fore you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right, 
you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a 


HOW YOU MAY KNOW THE TRUTH 287 


stupor of thought.” The late President Wilford Wood- 
ruff was all his life very susceptible to spiritual impres- 
sions, by which he was able to avoid many pitfalls of 
sin and even death. And such experiences can come to 
any one who will put himself in a position to receive them. 
We must learn to watch and to look for this action of 
the Spirit of the Lord on our own spirit, the inspired 
whispering of conscience, so as to have a sure guide in 
the affairs of life. It will lead us, as Jesus promised, 1n- 
to all truth. 


We have now gone over the main roads of “Mormon- 
ism,” in its history and its teachings. We have seen how 
the Lord in person, with His Son Jesus 
Review. Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith; how the 
Angel Moroni visited the Prophet and re- 
vealed to him the hiding place of the Gold Plates of the 
Nephites, which have come to be called the Book of Mor- 
mon; how the ancient Apostles Peter and James and 
John laid their hands upon the heads of Joseph Smith and 
Oliver Cowdery and ordained them to the higher priest- 
hood; how the Church of Christ was once more set up 
on the earth, with its proper officers and ordinances and 
principles and with the ancient signs of miraculous pow- 
ers; and, finally, how the bark of the Church has been 
guided over the rough waters and through the narrows 
towards its destiny. 

And now how are we to know that all these wonder- 
ful things are true? 

We may know it in the two ways indicated in what 
we have already learned in this chapter—by testing out 
the teachings of “Mormonism” in our lives and by seek- 
ing the witness of the Spirit. 


288 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


As for the first, it would be a good thing for you to 
eo over the various teachings discussed in this book to- 
Hoek gether with those you find in the ten com- 
may obtain mandments and the Sermon on the Mount, 
a testimony. to set them all down together before you 
on a sheet of paper, then to go over them one by one with 
a view to seeing how many of them you have already 
tried out in your experience and therefore know to be 
true, and how many of them you have yet to test out in 
your life. You will then be in a position to distinguish 
between what you know and what you do not know. 

After that, with respect to the second, do with “Mor- 
monism” what Moroni asks the readers of the Book of 
Mormon to do with that volume, if they wish to know 
whether it is true or not. That advice is to ask of God, 
who, as Joseph Smith found, would give liberally to all 
men without upbraiding any. This is what Moroni says: 

“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort 
you that ye would ask of God, the eternal Father, in the 
name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye 
shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having 
faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, 
by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of 
the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. 
Whatsoever thing is good, is just and true.” 


QUESTIONS 


1. What is a testimony? A testimony of the gospel? 

2. Is it a testimony when one preaches a short sermon on, 
say, baptism? 

3. What do you think about saying you know a thing to be 
true when you have had no experience concerning it? 

4. Name some principles of the gospel you have tested out in 
your experience. Relate the experience through which you gained 
this information. 

5, What value have you received from this course in Church 
history and doctrine? 


Avbeb i BaNe Dale xis vl 


General Authorities of the Church 
(1924) 


First Presidency : 
Heber J. Grant—Born Nov. 22, 1856. 
Charles W. Penrose—Born Feb. 4, 1832. 
Anthony W. Ivins—Born Sept. 16, 1852. 


Twelve Apostles: 
Rudger Clawson—Born Mar. 12, 1857. 
Reed Smoot—Born Jan. 10, 1862. 
George Albert Smith—Born April 4, 1870. 
George F. Richards—Born Feb, 23, 1861. 
Orson F. Whitney—Born July 1, 1855. 
David O. McKay—Born Sept. 8, 1873. 
Joseph Fielding Smith—Born July 19, 1876. 
James E. Talmage—Born Sept. 21, 1862. 
Stephen L. Richards—Born June 18, 1879. 
Richard R. Lyman— Born Nov. 23, 1870. 
Melvin J. Ballard—Born Feb. 9, 1873. 
John A. Widtsoe—Born Jan. 31, 1872. 


Presiding Patriarch: 
Hyrum G. Smith—Born July 8, 1879. 


First Seven Presidents of Seventies: 
Brigham H. Roberts—Born Mar. 13, 15/2 
Jonathan Golden Kimball—Born June 9, 1853. 
Rulon S. Wells—Born July 7, 1854. 
Joseph W. McMurrin—Born Sept. 5, 1858. 
Charles H. Hart—Born July 5, 1866. 
Levi Edgar Young—Born Feb. 2, 1874. 


Presiding Bishopric: 
Charles W. Nibley—Born Feb. 5, 1849. 
David A. Smith—Born May 24, 1879. 
John Wells—Born Sept. 16, 1865. 


290 OUR. CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Bs PP a Nee Be 


Following are the “Articles of Faith” of the Church, 
first published in the Times and Seasons (a Church pub- 
lication in Nauvoo) March 1, 1842. They were prepared, 
together with a brief account of “Mormonism,” for John 
Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat: 


1 


We believe in God, the eternal Father, and in his 
Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. 


2 


We believe that men will be punished for their own 
sins, and not for Adam’s transgression. 


3 


We believe that through the atonement of Christ, 
all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and 
ordinances of the gospel. 


4 


We believe that the first principles and ordinances 
of the gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; 
second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for 
the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for 
the gift of the Holy Ghost. 


5 


We believe that a man must be called of God, by 
“prophecy, and by the laying on of hands,” by those who 
are in authority to preach the gospel and administer in the 
ordinances thereof. 


6 . 
We believe in the same organization that existed in 
the primitive Church: namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, 
teachers, evangelists, etc. 


APPENDIX 291 


7 


We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revela- 
tion, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, etc. 


8 


We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far 
as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of 
Mormon to be the word of God. 


9 


We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does 
now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many 
great and important things pertaining to the kingdom 
of God. 


10 
We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in 
the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion will be built 
upon this continent ; that Christ will reign personally upon 
the earth; and that the earth will be renewed and receive 
its paradisiacal glory. 
11 


We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God 
according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow 
all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, 
or what they may. 


12 


We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, 
rulers and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustain- 
ing the law. 


13 


We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, 
virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may 
say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe 
all things, we hope all things, we have endured many 
things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there 
is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praise- 
worthy, we seek after these things. 





mUGleomOre i Altlingiils. | ciWe tet ccd ee fo ee Appendix 
Apostasy, from the religion of Jesus, 26-31; from the 
Church in Kirtland, 116. 
Apostles, in charge of Church, 159. 
Authority, divine, 87. 
B 


Babtism, nature of, 98, 99; of Utah pioneers, 205. 

Book of Mormon, one of our sacred records, 67; ex- 
istence of revealed to Prophet, 67; Moroni’s mes- 
sage concerning, 68; translation of, 73-76; publi- 
cation of, 77; witnesses of, 84-86; languages 
translated into, 86; how translated, 76; contents 
of, 76-82; teachings of, 83; purpose of, 82, 83. 


Cc 


Christianity, Edwine’s question concerning, 17; 
Divisions of, 21; Protestant, 23. 

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 89; name 
of, 89; not Catholic nor Protestant, 88; organized, 
90; first members of, 90, 91; democratic nature 
of, 94, 95; growth of, 250; a great organization, 
256, 


ARNT GN) Teh Fave Waa le Bee ae. | See ewes aa ven PP cee openeee Pe 
SSlrnenes se UNL Det Olt ee ere ce ae cee ees 21 
Coron COInes sy Calis on oe ee ee ee 190 
Community Building among early Utah settlers, 211-19 
(Go aiuists snowecetablisticdee. wave ewes 216 
CAOSMUE Cae Gh a (ODNy «chet, URS 5 clon Mare read hated Cie oh Obese 99 
Moropeta ioneanOnoeU talpScttlerSn ate. ee ay: hes 


Cowdery, Oliver, writes for the Prophet, 75; witness 
to the Book of Mormon, 84; one of first members 
- of Church, 90. 


294 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


D 
Decisions, on making 2a. ee, es 
E 
Ely, Prof. Richard T., on organization of “Mormon” 
Church t@ aR ne eee ee ee ee eee 200 2 Age 
F 
Fear Chi Sh EE el ee ee ed ee 96, 97 
G 


God, various ideas concerning, 52; importance of 
knowing, 53; ways in which we may know of, 54; 
best way of learning about, 55; qualities of, 56-58; 
First Vision of to Joseph Smith, 44-51. 


H 


Harris, Martin, lends Prophet money, 74; writes for 
Prophet, 75; witness to the Book of Mormon, 
84, 85. 

Heaven, where it is, 140; degrees of glory in, 141. 

Pigne@ouncil i072) re 2 Oe er 264 

Home, the, 143; conditions of, 144; religion in, 144; 
opportunities in, 274. 


Hlome smissions/.2 ake ea a ee 154 

Hyde; Orson, mission to, Palestine =... ae 130 
: J 

Jaredites S10 A152 Ve Seats et en eee 78 
K 


Kirtland, visit of missionaries to, 110; settlement of 
Saints in, 111; apostasy at, 116. 

Kimball, Heber C., goes on mission to England, 113; 
missionary work in England, 133. 


Gamanites™ (oils ne a Sige ee 81 
Lehites? 2°). 23° 26 Se ae ee 81 


INDEX 295 


WTeMRS Ile -ATLOs PUT DOSeIO tt okie Ath Cae at Tit. i 

We mann ySler yatOsisral itoring. Ae ce ee th) 17 

Petree Nal titia atapen bots bcd, Faye SP nt Se ote 23 
M 


Marriage, in the Church, 144; outside of the Church, 
146. | 
Mybotleriini iris eee ee ae ee we Ea OTE 34, 35 
Miracle, First in this dispensation, 91; discussion of, 
102-108; what it is, 104; purpose of, 106-108; 
various kinds of, 107, 108; the fruits of faith, 106. 

Migs ioniaal is. OneaniZedsOlOUp ji a. a:. ee 264 

Mission, first to Lamanites, 109-111; to Canada, 113; 
first to England, 113; second to England, 132-35; 
missions opened, 252; in later years, 153; at home, 
154. 

Missouri, first interest of Saints in, 110, 111; growth 
of “Mormon” settlements in, 119; expulsion of 
Saints from, 121. 


N 


Nauvoo, first settlement of Saints in, 127; growth of, 
129; exodus of Saints from, 162; last days of, 162; 
after the exodus, 163. 

2) ay SS 18 oc ee ie ene Hy GAS) sae: Red he 81 


Opposition, value of, 115; early opposition in Church, 
115; in Nauvoo, 161. | 

Opportunities in Church, 274, and following. 

Organization, of Church, 90; of pioneer companies, 168. 


P 
Pale-mucinission o1 Orsom Hyde-tottiat ie 130-31 
Prayer, Joseph Smith’s first, 59; ways in which prayer 
is answered, 61; forms of, 62; how God may 
hear, 63. 
Pratt, Parley P., one of first mission to Indians, 109 ; 


296 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


hymn made for, 190; value of work of, 109; marks 
of early, 221, and following. 

Presidency of Church, organization of, 267; law of 
succession in, 160. 

Priesthood, what it is, 27; given in days of Jesus, 29; 
how lost after his time, 29; restored to Joseph 
Smith, 87, 88; distribution of in “Mormon” 
Church, 95; divisions of, 95, 96. 

Principles, first, 96-100; order of, 100. 


Prophecy. of Heber(C. Kimball. S244 = eee 200 
Public speaking opportunities of in Church............... 279 
R 


Reformers, Protestant, 24; what they did, 24. 
Restoration, purpose of, 32-36; of priesthood, 87. 


Revival of 18202. ea eee 41, 42 
Repentance 4. 14...0: ae eee ee 97, 98 
Riches; kinds.iOf! Mine eee es 2 ee ee py 


Richards, Willard, goes on mission to England, 113; 
with Prophet at martyrdom, 151. 


Rigdon, Sidney ......... se Shs Ra eed 35 tee 110 
S 

pacrament, ace5 ty oe ee UZ 

salt.bake Cityglaidebut_ 3. ieee 2 206 

sea Gull monument... 192 

Singing, opportunities form. Churen eee 276 


Smith, Joseph, birth of, 38; childhood of, 39; parents 
of, 40; interested in revival of 1820, 41, 42; first 
Vision to, 44-51; reflections on Vision, 48; 
visions of Moroni to, 67-72; obtains plates of Book 
of Mormon, 72; translates Book of Mormon plates, 
73-76; moves to Pennsylvania, 74; organizes the 
Church, 90; is defended at Kirtland, 117; last 
scenes in life of, 148 and following; death of, 151; 
character of, 153-57. 

Spirit, human, 137; existed before this state, 138. 

Stake, meaning of, 263; nature of to-day, 264. 


INDEX 297 


goes on mission to Canada, 113; takes mission to 
England, 132. 

Pioneers, first companies, 166, 183; other companies 
of, 184; organization of, 187; Handcart com- 
panies, 187; characteristic features of westward 
trek, 188, and following; arrival in Utah, 184; 


alectiy (CGM COLT ect tester ey Crass teeta tegt Seer seca a ay aes Ly 

Temple, in Salt Lake City, 202; in Kirtland, 247. 

Temples, what they are, 239; meaning of to Latter- 
day Saints, 244. 


* PRSReVCU ATER Si, ANE N wa ha ce tn pee ony oe ae re ees me 259 

Testimony, how to obtain one, 283, and following. 

Sone ese Cir GOL acs fects, ome ter set ces Seg ae ecgecce ce apene 102 
U 


Utah, when first seen by the pioneers, 195; first winter 
in, 196; first years in, 199; how land was divided 
in, 205; home industries in early, 207; early ex- 
plorations in, 212; political government tah AW 


V 


War eeatice Put POSCLOTSIILE! setts cc sseere. ee ae ene eas 17 

Vision, first to Prophet Joseph, 44-51; personages of 
first, 52-58; how we are aided by first, 59. 

Visions of Moroni to Prophet, 67, and following. 


Wietonsine wrt land templet... ee ee 247 
W 

War, World, what it shows concerning man .......... 34 

DV it iemT tt meet O=(1 A Vaecge tastes, teeter Were ceom tne ata 33 


Wards, meaning of, 260; number of in Church, .... 264 

West, condition at time of exodus from Nauvoo, 16/7. 

Whipple, Nelson W.., narrative of migration to West, 
166-171; and 176, and following. 


298 OUR CHURCH AND PEOPLE 


Whitmer, David, aids in translation of Book of Mor- 
mon, 76; witness to Book of Mormon, 84; one of 
charter members of Church, 90. 

Woodruff, Wilford, missionary work in England, 134. 


nt 


Young, Brigham, takes mission to England, 132; 
sketch of life, 226, and following. 


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